Rufus King’s Murder Masks Miami

Murder Masks Miami, published in 1939, was the last of Rufus King’s eleven Lieutenant Valcour mysteries. Rufus King (1893-1966) wrote mysteries featuring featuring three other series detectives as well. In his day he was an immensely successful writer, certainly one of the big guns of American detective fiction. His subsequent eclipse is puzzling to say the least.

King wrote three excellent nautical mysteries in the early 1930s and Murder Masks Miami could easily qualify as being at least a semi-nautical mystery, with the story reaching its climax on board a luxury yacht.

Two women are murdered in Miami. One is a wealthy socialite, the other a slightly disreputable gold digger. Lieutenant Valcour on the New York Police Department had been trying to enjoy a welcome holiday in Miami but like so many fictional detectives he finds that murder seems to follow him even on vacation.

The wealthy socialite’s eccentricities, love of controlling other people and of course her money mean that suspects are quite thick on the ground. Especially so since she was the only member of her family with serious money. 

The local chief of police, an amiable soul by the name of Goodfriend, frankly admits that he is out of his depth and so he is more than happy to let Valcour do most of the investigating. Even though he really would have enjoyed a peaceful vacation Valcour is willing to do so. It’s difficult for a homicide cop not to get interested in what seems likely to be a fascinating and complex case and Goodfriend is such a nice guy Valcour is unwilling to leave him in the lurch.

There are plenty of clues, including a plethora of blonde wigs. 

Valcour is an appealing detective hero and, for a professional New York cop, a rather civilised one. He is reasonably comfortable moving among the upper classes which is just as well since most of his cases involve murder among the rich and famous.

Superficially King might appear to be of the school of S.S. Van Dine but King established himself as a writer at about the same time as Van Dine so it appears that rather than King copying Van Dine they were probably both influenced by the emerging British school of murder among the upper classes detective fiction. Valcour is a less colourful although possibly slightly more complex character than Philo Vance and he lacks the Vanceian mannerisms that annoy some readers.

King’s style is urbane, polished and witty and at times quite amusing. There is, fortunately, little in the way of overt social criticism here. The upper class settings provide glamour and while King is a shrewd observer of human foibles he has no political axes to grind.

I’ve read three of the earlier Valcour mysteries, Murder by Latitude, The Lesser Antilles Case and Murder on the Yacht and they’re all immense fun. 

Murder Masks Miami will be a delight to all fans of golden age detective fiction. Highly recommended.

Rufus King’s Murder on the Yacht

Murder on the Yacht, published in 1932, was one of Rufus King’s three 1930s maritime murder mysteries (the others being The Lesser Antilles Case and Murder by Latitude).

Rufus King (1893-1966) was an American mystery writer, and a very successful one in his day. He created several fictional detectives, the best-known being Lieutenant Valcour of the New York police. 

The yacht Crusader is about to sail from New York when Lieutenant Valcour arrives. A man who was supposed to be a guest on the yacht, a lawyer named Hedglin, has caused the police some concern by mysteriously disappearing from a taxi. The taxi driver picked him up but by the time the cab reached its destination Hedglin had vanished.

The owner of the yacht is Anthony Bettle, a very rich man. In Valcour’s experience very rich men tend to have curious hobbies which they pursue to the point of obsession. It soon becomes clear that Anthony Bettle is no exception to this rule but the exact nature of his hobby is not immediately apparent. Under ordinary circumstances Valcour would have exercised his authority to prevent the yacht from sailing until the mystery of Mr Hedglin had been cleared up. Ordinary circumstances do not however apply to men as rich as Anthony Bettle. Even the Police Commissioner is reluctant to give instructions to such a man. Bettle is absolutely insistent that the Crusader must sail at exactly one minute past midnight. The only way out of the impasse is for Valcour to sail with her. Valcour is in any case inclined to believe the answer to the puzzle will be found on board the yacht.

The Crusader is a very large and luxurious yacht, almost an ocean liner in miniature. It also happens to be equipped with the very latest technology, a ship-to-shore radio-telephone link. This will allow Valcour to keep in touch with the Commissioner and with the latest news on the investigations into the case being carried out ashore. Or at least it should allow him to keep in touch with New York.

The guests on the Crusader include a psychic by the name of Carlotta Balfé. Carlotta seems to be connected with Bettle’s pet obsession but finding out the nature of this obsession will require all of Valcour’s skills as a detective. Apart from having curious hobbies very rich men also tend to have a taste for secrecy.

The fate of Mr Hedglin becomes more and more curious. Is he on board somewhere or is he still in New York. There is evidence to suggest the former but there is equally strong evidence to support the latter conjecture. The evidence as to whether he is alive or dead is just as ambiguous. A murder investigation without a body is quite a challenge and it’s even more difficult when there’s not even any certainty that there has in fact been a murder. Valcour has even more to worry when Carlotta Balfé makes a very disturbing prediction. The increasingly erratic behaviour of Anthony Bettle is yet another concern.

Lieutenant Valcour is a puzzled man. The Crusader’s skipper, Captain Jorgensen, is on the other hand a very worried man. The sea is calm and the sky is clear. That’s why Captain Jorgensen is worried. The glass is dropping at an alarming rate and calm seas, clear skies and a rapidly falling glass do not reassure a sailor.

Shipboard mysteries are of course merely a variation on the time-honoured mystery novel technique of taking a group of people and isolating them in a remote house and then adding one or more murders. Shipboard mysteries do offer a writer a couple of other attractive options. Bodies can be made to disappear in a very complete fashion and if that doesn’t add enough tension one can always throw in a hurricane. King avails himself of all of these options.

Lieutenant Valcour belongs to the fairly colourless and self-effacing variety of fictional detectives but there is nothing colourless about King’s prose. In fact his prose is rich, witty and positively sparkling. King is sometimes spoken of as belonging to the Van Dine school of detective fiction. He has the same fondness for setting his murders among the rich and famous and for adding generous quantities of glamour and exoticism. It’s a formula that King exploits very adroitly. 

Murder on the Yacht has a varied and somewhat eccentric cast of characters and a plot that is satisfyingly ingenious whilst still remaining reasonably plausible. Couple these elements with King’s lively prose style, the exotic setting of a rich man’s yacht and just a hint of the occult and the results cannot fail to delight. Very highly recommended.

Rufus King's The Lesser Antilles Case

During the 1930s Rufus King wrote several mysteries featuring Lieutenant Valcour of the New York City police. Three of these novels had a maritime theme, The Lesser Antilles Case being the third.

The story opens with the survivors of a disaster at sea arriving in New York. Ten people (out of 43 passengers and crew) survived when the yacht Helsinor hit a reef near a tiny unnamed island. The problem is that by the time their lifeboat was picked up only eight people were aboard. And none of the eight could explain what had happened to the other two.

This is enough to attract a certain degree of police attention and Lieutenant Valcour is assigned to the case. He soon discovers other puzzling aspects to the survivors’ stories. They were all asleep at the time the two missing men disappeared. So soundly asleep that the most obvious explanation would seem to be that they were drugged. And a few hours before the Helsinor went down the chart (the chart covering the area of ocean they were cruising) was mislaid. Valcour might be no sailor but he knows that the one thing that does not get mislaid on a ship is a chart.

The two men who are missing presumed dead are the very wealthy owner of the yacht, Lawrence Thacker, and the yacht’s third mate. The survivors include several of Thacker’s relatives and friends, all of whom stand to inherit a great deal of money on his death. There’s also a slightly mysterious numerologist who had gained a considerable influence over Thacker.

The reader of course has no more actual knowledge of any of these events than does Lieutenant Valcour. Like the detective we have to piece the story together from the sometimes conflicting and often hazy recollections of the survivors. And the story is far from over. The unfortunate voyage of the Helsinor will have unexpected and fateful consequences, and there is another voyage yet to come. The voyage of the Helsinor II will be an attempt to unravel one mystery but may well provide mysteries of its own, and possibly more murders.

It has to be said that there is one key plot point that may stretch credibility a little. King’s attempt to make it plausible is certainly ingenious and interesting and he just about gets away with it. That’s really the only major reservation I had about this book. Other than that it’s a well-executed example of the golden age detective tale. There are clues in abundance but King knows how to keep the reader guessing.

Lieutenant Valcour belongs to what might be called the bland detective sub-type, the kind of detective favoured by authors who prefer to keep the detective in the background in order to keep the focus on the plot and on the suspects. It’s a perfectly valid approach and King does have the ability to make his suspects a fairly interesting lot. Even very minor characters are given their own flavour with Mr Stumpf the deep sea diver being particularly memorable.

This is my second Rufus King detective novel. I read Murder By Latitude (another maritime mystery for Lieutenant Valcour) a while back. So far I have to say I’m rather impressed by Rufus King.

My paperback copy gives the title as Murder Challenges Valcour in the Lesser Antilles Case but the original title seems to have been simply The Lesser Antilles Case. Either way this novel is warmly recommended.

Rufus King’s Murder by Latitude

Rufus King (1893-1966) is a now forgotten American mystery writer. Murder by Latitude, published in 1930, was one of the novels featuring his best-known detective, Lieutenant Valcour.

The SS Eastern Bay is a freighter recently converted to carry a small number of passengers. For most of the passengers this is strictly a pleasure cruise, but for two of them it means deadly serious business. One is a murderer, the other is Lieutenant Valcour of the New York Police whose job it is to find that killer.

It should be a fairly easy job for Lieutenant Valcour - all he has to do is to wait until the New York Police send him a radio message containing an eyewitness description of the murderer. When the ship’s radio operator is found dead in circumstances suggesting foul play his task becomes somewhat more difficult. The Eastern Bay is a small ship and carries only one radio operator. No-one else on board the ship can operate the radio. So now Lieutenant Valcour is on his own and he must find the killer before he strikes again.

Without a description his task seems hopeless, but there is a reason the killer has taken the cruise. If he can uncover that reason he should be able to unmask the slayer. To add a further complication, he realises he’s not even certain the killer is male.

All he does know is that it’s a passenger, not a member of the crew. That still leaves plenty of suspects. There’s the wealthy Mrs Poole, accompanied by husband number five. There’s Mr Wright, who looks harmless but then murderers can look harmless. There’s young Mr Force. There’s the gleefully cynical M. Dumarque, who glories in his own (largely imaginary) wickedness. But that could be a clever blind. And there’s Mr and Mrs Sanford. It could be any one of them. And of course it could be a stowaway.

Valcour can rely on some help from the captain of the ship, an old sea dog named Sohme who proves to be surprisingly sentimental.

This is a classic set-up for a murder mystery - isolate a group of suspects so that the reader knows the murderer must be one of a limited number of suspects, and none of the suspects can escape. Nor can their potential victims.

King handles this setup with considerable skill and also makes good use of the shipboard setting. At times the sea itself seems as sinister as murder. Not that the ship encounters any storms. Just fog, drizzle and overcast weather. Especially fog. The captain is reduced to navigating by dead reckoning. The fog, added to the loss of their only radio operator, also makes it impossible for anyone to contact the ship or for them to contact anyone else (rather like the classic mystery device of isolating a group of people in a country house in a storm and having the telephone wires go down). The fog is a more subtly sinister way to achieve the same end, and the fact that the captain cannot even say with absolute certainty where the ship is adds to the tension.

Being a golden age detective story you expect a plot that is ingenious even if it stretches the limits of credibility. The secret is to stretch the limits of credibility without becoming totally implausible and King succeeds here as well.

Valcour is not a colourful detective but he has his human touches - he is genuinely spooked by the fact that they don’t know where they are and he is totally cut off from the normal resources that would be available to a cop. Not only is the ship beset by fog - he feels himself surrounded by a kind of mental fog. Captain Sohme proves to be an engaging and interesting supporting character.

Murder by Latitude is a fine example of the crime fiction of the 1930s and it’s also one of the best examples of the shipboard mystery novel. Highly recommended.