Asa Bordages's Murders in Silk

Asa Bordages (1906-1986) wrote four crime novels in the 1930s. Using the pseudonym Mike Teagle he wrote Murders in Silk in 1938. It was reissued by Lion Books in 1951. This was a slightly revised edition, with dates being changed to make it appear to have been written in 1951.

Tiberius Bixby (known to his family and friends as Tie Bixby) is on a train, on the way to visit his dad. He notices a pretty girl wearing a cute little red hat. She’s pretending not to know the man sitting opposite her but before boarding the train Tie had seen her having an animated conversation with this man. This unexplained man never reaches his destination. He is found, very dead, in the ladies’ room on the train. The girl in the cute red hat finds the body.

When the train arrives at Scraffton, Tie’s home town, his old school friend Rafe Conner, now a police detective, takes charge of the case. For reasons he finds impossible to explain even to himself Tie tells Conner a lie on red hat girl’s behalf. Tie doesn’t realise it but he’s now involved himself in a whole series of perplexing events which will include more than one murder.

What really worries Tie about the murder on the train is the murder weapon, an unusual knife. That knife could only have come from one place, Tie knows where that place is, and he isn’t happy about it.

Shortly afterwards there is a fire, at the house of a neighbour of the Bixbys. The circumstances are suspicious. It has something to do with silk. Curiously enough Tie sees red hat girl (whose name is actually Gretchen Jones) at the scene of the fire.

Tie finds himself mixed up with two other women. One is Ruth. She was a childhood friend. The other is a pretty blonde who hates her own father.

There have been two murders and while Tie had nothing to do with the murders that lie he told after the first murder means that he is involved whether he likes it or not.

He also realises that he’s fallen in love, and she might be the kind of girl with whom it’s unwise to fall in love. There’s another girl in love with him, and that seems likely to cause complications. He has hoodlums trying to kill him. He finds himself having to rescue damsels in distress. He’s told a lie, and lots of lies have been told to him. He has no idea what’s going on, much to the disappointment of his father Zebediah. Zeb Bixby is rarely sober but he’s a kind of alcoholic marvel - no matter how much he drinks his mind is still as sharp as a tack. Zeb thinks he knows what’s going on but being an irascible (although likeable) old coot he’s determined to make Tie figure it out for himself.

Tie isn’t dumb but he’s out of his depth. He turns out rather surprisingly to be a lot tougher, and a lot more handy with his fists, than he looks. He might be better off breaking his habit of coming to the rescue of ladies in distress but it’s an ingrained habit.

Given that this novel has been reissued in the Black Gat Books imprint I was expecting noir fiction, or at least hardboiled crime. It is slightly hardboiled but mostly it’s a fairly traditional puzzle-plot mystery novel. It’s reasonable to say that it qualifies as a fair-play mystery. In fact some of the clues might be a little too obvious. On the whole the plot is very serviceable with some nasty twists. There are lots of betrayals and conflicted loyalties.

Tie is a likeable enough hero. We assume that he’s going to be the amateur detective who solves the case but then there’s an interesting narrative shift.

The novel does perhaps have a slight claim to being noir (or at least noirish) fiction. There are three women all of whom might at different times be seen as playing the femme fatale rôle.

One item of interest is that the actual amateur detective is very manipulative. The mystery is resolved quite satisfactorily but we don’t get the kind of neat and tidy emotional resolution we might be expecting.

Murders in Silk has just enough slightly unexpected features to make it more than just a routine story. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Highly recommended.