A fine contemporary mystery — written five decades ago

Kyle E. Eller/Budgeteer News

Recommendation: Though this book was written more than 50 years ago, it has a relatively contemporary feel, and its intricate plotting will tickle mystery lovers.

Mystery readers are sick people. They read to be fooled, to be confused. The more twisted the plot, the better; the more sinister the bad guy, the more satisfying the read. The more real the danger their beloved heroes are in, the more fun they have.

Smart, sure, but sick.

The Afton Historical Society Press, based in Afton, recently bestowed a gift on Minnesota mystery lovers with the re-release of two Mabel Seeley mysteries.

Seeley, a popular Minnesota-born writer of the '30s, '40s and '50s, is an interesting figure in our literary tradition, and a big-league mystery writer. (Don't let the small press fool you. First, Afton is not as small as it sounds, publishing high-quality, award-winning books. Second, the Seeley book I selected to review was originally published by Doubleday in New York and distributed by The Crime Club there.)

Selecting which mystery to review was easy — The Chuckling Fingers, "the mystery of the year in 1941" says Afton, is set near Grand Marais and details a battle between descendants of a wealthy lumber baron.

It sounds like fun, and it is. The first thing a reader notices in this book are all the old conventions, most of which still work. Like a script for a play, the book opens with a setting statement and the "Dramatis Personae," a list of characters that is handy while the intricate plot line unwinds.

Seeley, who lived from 1903 to 1991, also starts the book as a "frame story," a technique that is not used as much today as it was during Seeley's career. Essentially, the reader is introduced to the character after the story has already taken place, and the novel reads like a giant flashback (Seeley does not "complete" the frame by coming out of the flashback at the end).

Seeley chose this technique quite deliberately, because she takes the opportunity to tell the reader exactly what will happen in the book.

This strategy may seem bizarre, almost guaranteed to destroy the suspense that is the hallmark of the mystery genre. The real result is quite different — the introduction is cryptic, just enough to whet the appetite, and the technique serves well toward the end of the book, when the reader is unsure how much action is yet to come. This is also great cover — if the plot ever flags, readers can check back and see what's on the docket.

The frame strategy is perfectly executed, and mostly avoids the down side — to some modern readers, especially snobs, framing this way is a "device" that can seem phony.

Attention to craft is the rule in The Chuckling Fingers. Seeley weaves an intricate plot with plenty of action and nicely developed characters. She does a masterful job of casting suspicion on characters — just when the reader thinks she has a handle on whodunit, legitimate suspicions about somebody else crop up. Seeley must have had fun with the subterfuge, sending readers on chase after chase — exactly the kind of chase mystery readers crave.

The ending is satisfying, wholly fitting and yet surprising. (Surprising to me at least — you professional mystery readers may fare better.)

As a novel, Fingers is remarkably contemporary. The lead character, Ann Gay, is an intelligent, strong-willed woman. In the first-person point-of-view, the mystery unfolds and is solved through her eyes, and she plays a significant role in the action scenes, especially the end. Many displays of patriarchal society seep through the book (even in Gay's character), and modern readers may cringe at a few of the male characters' attitudes, but the staunchest feminist will find plenty to like about Ann Gay.

The minor North Shore characters are a mite stereotyped, but nothing terribly derogatory. Though the story centers on descendants of a lumber baron and the northern Minnesota wilderness is sometimes portrayed in a less-than-flattering light, the generation Seeley describes is a group of bona fide tree huggers compared to their clear-cutting forbearers.

Where Fingers does show its age, you may wonder if we weren't better off in 1941. Though Fingers has several murders, it contains virtually no gore — I see that Amazon has even categorized the novel as "young adult." This categorization is patently silly — Fingers was written for adults and remains a great adult read — but what are the implications when young adult readers could well find this murder mystery tame?

One cannot help but draw parallels to Seeley's modern descendants, like Joan Drury, another Minnesota writer who set a murder mystery on the North Shore. Both writers wrote the strong first-person woman lead character who discovers the first body and solves a mystery not-quite-singlehandedly. Both deal with women's issues, although Drury does it more directly. It is interesting to consider this preexisting tradition in our literary heritage.

More to the point, lovers of conventional mysteries will love this book. It is perfectly executed to deliver all the thrills, action and whodunit suspense their sick (er, I mean, quick) minds crave.

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