Within That Room!
Page 14
“I’m turning my scientific angles to account in the production of a scientific detective for England. A book, by the way. Be two years in the making, I expect. Chief guy is a scientist, and solves all kinds of things that puzzle Scotland Yard. I’m trying to get out of the rut of Frenchman, Chinamen and what-have-you with this yarn. Guy will be something like Nero Wolfe, only he drinks tea, not beer.”
In 1938, Fearn successfully introduced detective and mystery elements into science fiction, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Thornton Ayre’. The new technique (which Fearn called ‘webwork’) involved connecting seemingly unrelated elements together to unravel a complex mystery. The method was already known in the detective field, the leading exponent being U.S. writer Harry Stephen Keeler.
By 1939, Fearn was expressing to friends his liking for crime mysteries, in preference to sf writing, but commercial exigencies dictated that, as a full-time writer, he had to continue to concentrate on science fiction during the early years of the war.
However, the American sf magazine market continued to expand, and so Fearn—as a full-time professional writer with a widowed mother to support—was obliged to continue writing mainly science fiction, with only occasional forays into detective and crime short stories for the American pulp magazine Thrilling Mystery Stories (the best of which are to be found in another Wildside title, LIQUID DEATH AND OTHER STORIES). Fearn’s proposed book for English publishers, featuring his tea-drinking scientist detective, remained unwritten.
In November 1939, Fearn sent a letter to one of his regular correspondents, tyro-author (and cinema buff) William F. Temple, in which he referred to Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer’s acceptance of his story, “The Man Who Saw Two Worlds.” Fearn wrote:
“In this I introduce Brutus Lloyd, the first genuine criminologist who dabbles in scientific riddles, who is conceited, masterful and breezy. Palmer seems to like him immensely and requires more. I called him Alka Lloyd, but Palmer refused to be sold on it! The story is actually Wells’ “The Plattner Story” brought bang up to date, and Lloyd is based on Ernest Truex in the film Ambush (starring Lloyd Nolan).”
Brutus Lloyd was popular with Amazing Stories readers, and so two further novelettes were published over the next couple of years. But by the mid 1940s, Fearn was beginning to raise his sights from the US pulp magazines, and he began to move into new book-length markets in England.
Since Fearn was well-known as a science fiction author, he was obliged to adopt pseudonyms for his detective fiction, writing hardcover novels as ‘John Slate’ and ‘Hugo Blayn.’
As John Slate, he created the brilliant female detective “Black Maria,” who debuted in BLACK MARIA. M.A. (1944) and as Hugo Blayn he created “Dr. Carruthers” whose first adventure, FLASHPOINT appeared in 1950. All of their books have been reprinted in the UK in recent years, and a few of them were also issued by Wildside Press, most notably FLASHPOINT.
This was one of Fearn’s best-written, and most carefully plotted novels, and the character of Dr. Carruthers is brilliantly realized. This is not so surprising when one realizes that the book is one he had been working on for several years: Carruthers is, in fact, the very same character that Fearn had first conceived back in 1937, and who had been first developed as Brutus Lloyd.
Writing an introduction to OTHER EYES WATCHING, a science fiction novel published in England by Pendulum Publications in 1946 (reprinted from the U.S. pulp Startling Stories) Fearn revealed that his favorite mystery and detective writer was John Dickson Carr, famous as the master the ‘locked room’ mystery.
Fearn’s own detective novels are classics of the ‘locked room’ and ‘impossible crime’ genres, but because they were written under pseudonyms, he did not achieve in England the recognition in the detective field that he deserved.
Fearn decided to try writing mysteries for the Toronto Star Weekly under his own name. He knew he faced terrific competition in this genre: regular contributors included Margery Allingham, John Dickson Carr, Erle Stanley Gardner, Philip MacDonald, Ellery Queen, and Roy Vickers.
During the war, Fearn had worked for three years as a cinema projectionist in his home town of Blackpool, and he continued to be an avid filmgoer. He had seen the many great ‘film noir’ crime thrillers that Hollywood produced in the 1940s, with their atmosphere of menace and mystery. So he felt equal to the task.
His first ‘impossible crime’ novel for the Star Weekly was WITHIN THAT ROOM! (1946) published under his own name. However, so great was the success of his science fiction character “The Golden Amazon” in the same magazine, that Fearn again switched to pseudonyms for his next detective novels there, writing as ‘Thornton Ayre’ and ‘Frank Russell’.
Over the next ten years, Fearn’s Star Weekly detective novels included WITHIN THAT ROOM! (1946), THE CRIMSON RAMBLER (1947; as Thornton Ayre), SHATTERING GLASS (1947), and THE FOURTH DOOR (1948) both as by Frank Russell, and under his own name ROBBERY WITHOUT VIOLENCE (1957) this latter novel having a distinctly science fictional flavour.
Up until 1955, Fearn’s Toronto Star Weekly novels were also reprinted in various American newspapers near to the Canadian border, in the New York and Maine areas, including The Bangor News (later as Bangor Sunday Commercial), Newark Sunday Star Ledger, and Long Island Sunday Press. In recent years, all of Fearn’s Star Weekly mysteries have been reprinted in England and elsewhere, but no American book editions have ever been published. Until now!
Borgo Press will be reprinting all of Fearn’s Star Weekly mysteries, along with several of his best detective novels, including some posthumous works. No discerning collector of locked room and ‘impossible crime’ stories can afford to miss them!
Table of Contents
BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY JOHN RUSSELL FEARN
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR