Lilian de la Torre was a pseudonym for Lillian McCue, nee Bueno (1902-1993). She was born in New York City, and held masters' degrees from Columbia University and Radcliffe College. In 1932 she married professor of English, George S. McCue. As well as the Dr Sam Johnson books, de la Torre wrote non-fiction studies of crime and several plays including Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden.

Mike Grost on Lillian de la Torre

Lillian de la Torre's short stories about Dr. Sam Johnson are the ancestors of much of today's historical mystery fiction. Real life personages and events are often woven into these stories, and there is a great deal of historical atmosphere and dialogue. Unusual aspects of 18th Century law enforcement are often worked into the tales. The cleverest puzzle plot in the series is "The Stroke of Thirteen" (1953). This tale has affinities to the impossible crime school. It does not deal with a locked room or other physical impossibility; instead it deals with events which seem to be absurd, and gives them an ultimately logical explanation. The elaborate complexity of the plot in this tale recalls Ellery Queen, who published de la Torre's stories in EQMM.

The fine first story in the series, "The Great Seal of England" (1943), also shows signs of affinity with EQ and his traditions: it has a deductive finale, where logic is used to deduce the identity of the culprit. It also uses that favorite EQ plot, the search for a missing, ingeniously hidden object. So do other tales in the series, such as "Prince Charlie's Ruby". Many of the mysteries in the Johnson tales involve the concealment of an object or a person. As is often in de la Torre, the characters' motives for their schemes is to protect some person in trouble. The story also shows de la Torre's fondness for highwaymen, those 18th Century robbers now seen as colorful quasi-heroes.

Lillian de la Torre shows other features linking her to the Van Dine school as a whole, of which EQ was a member. Her detective is a genius amateur who occasionally works closely with the police of the era. Many of the characters in the tales are intellectuals, involved in science or the arts; her detective is an authority on the arts. Several are collectors, looking for missing priceless objects around which the mysteries swirl. Theatrical settings are common. There is the persistent Van Dine school concern with racial minorities, notably in the anti-slavery tale "The Blackamoor Unchain'd" (1974). There is the detailed rich storytelling valued by the Van Dine writers.

But there are influences here outside of the Van Dine school, notably from John Dickson Carr. Carr's biographer Douglas G. Green, in his John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995), quotes de la Torre as saying she was inspired by Carr's The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey (1936) to create her historical detective stories. Carr's book is a factual, non-fiction account of a real life murder case. But it is written much like a novel. Carr's book, like de la Torre's stories, takes place in England of a few hundred years ago. Carr is not a member of the Van Dine school. Carr and the Van Dine writers are in turn members of a larger group, the intuitionist detective writers. So de la Torre definitely is oriented towards the intuitionist approach.

Some of the Sam Johnson tales involve de la Torre's recreations of famous unsolved true crimes. Usually these have new solutions suggested by her. These solutions tend to scrupulously stick to the facts of the case, and yet try to suggest a surprising guilty party and explanation of the crime. Her non-Johnson play Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden (1947) is also in this tradition. This whole approach is exactly that of Carr in The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey. I am of two minds about these fictionalized true crime tales. I respect the ingenuity the author shows in them, working within the strict historical limits of the cases. But I do not enjoy any of them as much as the cases de la Torre has made up out of her own head. These purely fictitious tales show much more imagination and mystery puzzle plot ingenuity than the true crimes.

The Individual Tales

The whole first collection, Dr Sam Johnson, Detector, is especially charming as a historical work. The tales' events are often extremely colorful, and de la Torre is a superb prose stylist with a grasp of the possibilities of 18th Century English usage. In some ways, it might be best just to recommend the whole collection. Still the tales are very different from each other, and vary in their success as mystery and historical works. In addition to "The Great Seal of England", my favorites are "The Flying Highwayman" (1946) and "The Manifestations in Mincing Lane". These two works have an abundance of mystery. In neither are the mysteries hard to fathom, and readers should not expect overwhelming ingenuity on the order of Agatha Christie here. Yet the mysteries in these stories are beautifully wrought, considered as pieces of storytelling. The plots have the right "shape": they are enjoyable to think about, and savor mentally. "Prince Charlie's Ruby" (1944) also has a mystery to it, in fact two different sets of mysteries in the first and second halves of the story. Yet it is mainly a historical work. Like that other EQMM contributor, James Yaffe, de la Torre believed in giving readers a large quantity of mystery plot, with clues, sub plots, and series of ingenuities along the way. "The Monboddo Ape Boy" (1945) is nicely done as a historical tale, but it only has a thin mystery. "The Wax-Work Cadaver" (1945) has the opposite problem. It has some real ingenuity, with a role reversal plot in the tradition of Doyle. But the story is the sort of macabre tale I've never enjoyed.

"The Banquo Trap" (1959) is ordinary as a mystery, but its recreation of being backstage in the 18th Century theater is outstanding. The first half of the story is especially rich in detail. One feels as if one were actually there.

"The Bedlam Bam", like some other tales in The Return, is less a mystery than an adventure story of crime defeated. It combines the "social victim rescued" motif of "The Blackamoor Unchain'd" (1974) and the coffin and burial story of "The Resurrection Men" (1972).

"The Virtuosi Venus" (1973) is unusual as a story in that it is actually solved three times. It is in the tradition of such multiple solution Golden Age novels as EQ's The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932). That de la Torre does this all in the space of a short story shows her commitment to bringing the reader a full mead of mystery.

"The Westcombe Witch" (1973) is a story of a coven, reminiscent of John Rhode's The Secret of High Eldersham (1931). This is just a little anecdote, hardly a full fledged puzzle plot mystery, but it is charming. There is a pattern in some of de la Torre's work in the 1970's. She will start out with a work that is exceptionally well crafted both as historical fiction and as a puzzle plot story: in 1973, "The Virtuosi Venus", in 1976, "The Aerostatick Globe". She will then write a second tale, less fully crafted and with hardly any puzzle plot, but with some charm: "The Westcombe Witch" (1973) and "The Spirit of the '76" (1976), respectively. Many of these 1970's stories involve foreigners in England, either Italians or Americans.

"The Aerostatick Globe" (1976) is the best work in the Exploits collection, both as historical fiction, and as a mystery. Its unusual, gentle mystery subject reminds us that de la Torre is typically far more interested in robbery than in murder. The somewhat unusual subject matter allows innovation in the plot construction. I think authors should experiment more with off trail subjects for mystery. Murder has been done to death - some less extreme crimes offer some real plot possibilities.

"The Aerostatick Globe" was followed by another story about scientists, "The Spirit of the '76" (1976). In this case Johnson meets Ben Franklin. The story was clearly written to celebrate the Bicentennial of the United States, held in 1976. The Dr. Johnson tales sometimes reflected 20th Century events of the time they were written; for example, "Coronation Story" (1953), which depicts the coronation of King George III in 1761, was written in the same year (1953) as the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The Dr. Johnson tales often include a narrative process. Examples include plays, trials, historical accounts, launching a balloon, and rituals like coronations and funerals. This process includes a strong beginning, middle and end. It adds a well defined structure to the story, and a framework for the reader's expectations. These processes also function as stories, and grip the reader's interest. There is a great deal of visual pageantry in these stories, such as the gorgeous costumes worn and other visual effects. There is also much emphasis on the scientific and technological methods that underlay these processes.

De la Torre differs from many historical mystery writers of today in that she is more interested in civilization than primitiveness. Dr. Johnson was an advanced thinker of his time, in one of the most intellectual cities of the Enlightenment. He represents a peak of civilization. Many of the stories are about advanced science of their time ("The Aerostatick Globe", "The Monboddo Ape Boy") or art ("The Banquo Trap", "The Virtuosi Venus"). By contrast, many of today's historical mysteries want to explore the most barbaric activities of their times. The stories of de la Torre are also much happier and more cheerful than many contemporary historical tales. Their happy atmosphere resembles that of fairy tales.

Bibliography

The Sam Johnson series

Dr Sam Johnson, Detector (1946)

The Detections of Dr Sam Johnson (1960)

The Return of Dr Sam Johnson, Detector (1985)

The Exploits of Dr Sam Johnson, Detector (1987)

Others:

Elizabeth Is Missing (1945)

The Heir of Douglas (1952)

The Truth about Belle Gunness (1955)