THE DEVIL LOVES ME

Paul Prye #3

by Margaret Millar

In an anonymous letter to Dr. Pry, an unknown murderer warns of his intention. He tells Pry that he's about to give him a murder to solve at his own doorstep, saying that it is high time someone combined a wedding and a funeral. He left the note in Pry's friend's pocket instead of the ring, "not because you can stop me, but merely to assure you that I am deadly serious." A bride, a groom, and a wedding feast are about to be interrupted by a clever killer. But will he be clever enough to get past Dr. Pry?

Genres: Mystery, Freight, Mystery Thriller

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Margaret Ellis Millar (née Sturm) was an American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she was educated there and in Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar (better known under the pen name Ross Macdonald). They resided for decades in the city of Santa Barbara, which was often utilized as a locale in her later novels under the pseudonyms of San Felice or Santa Felicia.

Millar's books are distinguished by sophistication of characterization. Often we are shown the rather complex interior lives of the people in her books, with issues of class, insecurity, failed ambitions, loneliness or existential isolation or paranoia often being explored with an almost literary quality that transcends the mystery genre. Unusual people, mild societal misfits or people who don't quite fit into their surroundings are given much interior detail. In some of the books we are given chilling and fascinating insight into what it feels like to be losing touch with reality and evolving into madness. In general, she is a writer of both expressive description and yet admirable economy, often ambitious in the sociological underpinnings of the stories and the quality of the writing.

Millar often delivers effective and ingenious "surprise endings," but the details that would allow the solution of the surprise have usually been subtly included, in the best genre tradition. One of the distinctions of her books, however, is that they would be interesting, even if you knew how they were going to end, because they are every bit as much about subtleties of human interaction and rich psychological detail of individual characters as they are about the plot.

Millar was a pioneer in writing intelligently about the psychology of women. Even as early as the '40s and '50s, her books have a very mature and matter-of-fact view of class distinctions, sexual freedom and frustration, and the ambivalence of moral codes depending on a character's economic circumstances. Her earliest novels seem unusually frank. Read against the backdrop of Production Code-era movies of the time, they remind us that life as lived in the '40s and '50s was not as black-and-white morally as Hollywood would have us believe.

While she was not known for any one recurring detective (unlike her husband, whose constant gumshoe was Lew Archer), she occasionally used a detective character for more than one novel. Among her occasional ongoing sleuths were Canadians Dr. Paul Prye (her first invention, in the earliest books) and Inspector Sands (a quiet, unassuming Canadian police inspector who might be the most endearing of her recurring inventions). In the California years, a few books featured either Joe Quinn, a rather down-on-his-luck private eye, or Tom Aragorn, a young, Hispanic lawyer.
Sadly, most of Millar's books are out of print in America, with the exception of the short story collection The Couple Next Door and two novels, An Air That Kills and Do Evil In Return, that have been re-issued as classics by Stark House Press in California.

In 1956 Millar won the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Best Novel award for Beast in View. In 1965 she was awarded the Woman of the Year Award by the Los Angeles Times. In 1983 she was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition of her lifetime achievements.

Reviews

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

12/ 2017

Actually, despite the cool title and Millar's good lines, this is a fairly typical classic mystery with a detective. Until the end, when the book takes a turn to strangely abstract violence. It is from 1942 (it probably would have been more graphic even 10 years later). My old copy (1942) is apparently a book club selection. A gold box on the spine says Crime Club (if it ever had a dust jacket, it does not now).

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third and last of Millar's three Paul Prye detective novels and the first of her three Inspector Sands novels, this has an opening chapter of which Ellery Queen in his/their pomp would have been mighty proud . . . of which any GAD novelist would have been proud.

In Toronto, Prye and his true love Nora are getting married in a grand ceremony -- cast of thousands, kind of thing. But then, just before the actual plighting, one of the bridesmaids, Nora's cousin Jane Stevens, collapses of what proves to be atropine poisoning. The wedding ring has mysteriously disappeared from Prye's pocket; in its place is a sinister note claiming responsibility for the murder.

Except it isn't a murder, as things turn out. Jane pulls through, thanks in some part to an anonymous phone call to the hospital identifying her condition.

Back at Nora's familial home, various pertinent parties hang around waiting for Toronto PD's Inspector Sands to sort out the attempt on Jane's life. But then there's a murder -- Jane's controlling brother Duncan -- and another, and another . . .

I don't think any mystery novel could have completely followed through after that first chapter -- it blew my socks off, and my socks ain't easily blowable off -- but The Devil Loves Me makes a damn' good try. As Prye and Sands detectived their way through the increasingly complex plot, I was entirely bamboozled as to the identity of the multiple killer; when the truth was at last revealed, the solution seemed (for me at least) to come completely out of left field. Although Prye and Sands claim in the concluding pages to have deduced the truth, a cynic could say that the solution has been teased out rather by Jane's cousin, hot divorcee Dinah.

In the first of the Paul Prye outings. The Invisible Worm , the central character was so rebarbative as to significantly hamper one's enjoyment of the novel. (Millar toned Prye down a lot for the second in the series, The Weak-Eyed Bat , and has done so even more here.) A major reason why Prye seemed so objectionable in that first book was his habit, at every possible opportunity (and a few that were not so possible), of quoting fragments of Blake poetry at people. In this context, it's interesting that, in The Devil Loves Me, when he does spout a couplet (and it's Wordsworth, not Blake), another character responds with

"I had no idea you were fond of poetry, Paul."

How things have changed!

The final stages of the novel seem to be pointing toward a different direction that Millar's writing will soon take: a focus on the psychological/domestic thriller rather than the then-traditional whodunnit. I'll discover over the next few days if this impression is illusory on my part. But here are the final few lines of The Devil Loves Me so you can judge for yourself:

There was fog again, a wall of fog built around the city, breaking the wind, muffling the gloomy wail of the foghorn from the lake.

As [Inspector] Sands walked, a damp leaf fluttered against his coat sleeve and clung to it. As if I were its last hope for life, Sands thought.

He jerked his arm, and the leaf fell drunkenly to the pavement and lay stained red with the blood of autumn and smudged with soot.

Indignity, Sands thought, the death of anything is an indignity,

He walked on, swinging his arms savagely through the fog.

Noirish, or what? I'm champing at the bit to read the first of Millar's Inspector Sands novels!

I read The Devil Loves Me as part of the fairly recently published omnibus The First Detectives , the opening volume of a hugely ambitious project from Soho Press, reprinting the entirety of Millar's work in a matching set of six omnibuses and a memoir. The print's kind of small and I could have done with fewer typos, but it's a handsome volume nonetheless.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an engaging though uneven mystery. Margaret Millar (1915-94) kept me interested throughout, even while her presentation of characters varied wildly, from superficial to intense and in depth. She's a quirky writer, seemingly going with the flow over a balanced plot or storytelling. The Toronto setting in 1942 was intriguing as the tale played out on both sides of the border (what, no wall?). Millar (irl married to Ross MacDonald of Lew Archer fame) tried to create at least three series detectives during her career, and two of them appear here. This was the third and last Paul Prye episode, and although he's a "consulting psychiatrist," he just isn't winning enough to carry a novel or a series. Millar was an expert at selecting titles for her books, even though I'm unsure what it had to do with the story. I like the quirky. [3½★]

[Abbey · Rating 3 out of 5]

1942, #3 Dr. Paul Prye, Psychiatrist & Inspector Sands, Toronto. A bridesmaid gets poisoned at a posh wedding and any of a dozen house guests might have done it; tidy "closed circle" tale, with several bodies and lots of suspicion. Genteel suspense/thriller with a bit of an edge, three-and-one-half stars.

This early novel of Millar's is her third about Dr. Prye but was the first I could find available at the library. Didn't make for any problems, though, as this was a very smoothly written, capably plotted and executed "suspenser", without too much melodrama, very little fem-jep (thank heavens!) and some really fine characterizations.

Dr. Prye is about to marry his beloved Nora in a ritzy ceremony in Toronto when he finds a bridesmaid having convulsions in the vestry. And then his best man hands him a note that he found tucked inside his jacket. It reads:

"Dr. Frye:
I have arranged a little surprise for you. Knowing how interested you are in murders I have decided to give you one on your own doorstep, as it were. Don't be too flattered. I intended to do it anyway. But the setting is too good to miss. I have always been intrigued by the funeral aspect ot weddings and the hymeneal aspect of funerals. It is high time someone combined the two. I am leaving this note in your friend's pocket in place of the ring, not because you can stop the murder, but merely to assure you that I am perfectly serious."

As the bodies pile up, all are connected with the wedding party, and in particular, with Nora's home. Dr. Prye and the extremely accommodating Inspector Sands work together, sort of, to solve the crime, with Prye only able to give hints (shrink can't really rat on his patients, now, can he?) and Sands allowing him access to some confidential information. Dr. Prye is a nice enough 30-ish man, not terribly involved in the case actually, and doesn't do much except listen to all the verbal sniping going on in the increasingly tight atmosphere of Nora's home. But this allows *us* to listen in as well, and it works fairly well here, although he's rather bland for my taste.

And Inspector Sands is even more bland, alas. Similar to Christianna Brand's Inspector Cockrill in his innofensive grayness and ability to be ignored much of the time, he shows decent enough intelligence but we are only told of his personality flaws and "interesting bits", not shown them. He's pretty much "null". It's the biggest weakness in the novel IMO. And Dr. Prye is remarkably similar to and yet blander than Helen McCloy's Dr. Basil Willing, also a psychiatrist; that series began 3-4 four years prior to Millar's Paul Prye. But crime-solving psychiatrists were hot then, so Millar was in good company - and anyway, I enjoyed this story pretty much.

On the surface it's fairly formulaic - ritzy folks in a closed setting, lots of connected murders, and The Least Likely Suspect seems, close to the end, to be Most Likely. The building up of the various characters playing off of each other is beautifully done, with some glorious verbal sniping going on - always a favorite of mine when done well. And Millar does it well - and funny too.

BOTTOM LINE: Nicely tidy old-fashioned murder mystery with likable cast (mostly), a decent setting, reasonably good pacing, and sharp psychological edges. Entertaining.

[Bill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another high society murder mystery in a big house, the suspects limited to the guest list. Although Millar can write noir plots, this one has all the features of a cozy, except perhaps for somewhat gruesome means of death. Characters are efficiently described and dramatized, rather than deeply drawn. A plot that moves along is the main thing.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Convoluted and rather hard to follow. I didn't realize when I started reading that there were two previous Dr. Prye books. Maybe if I'd read them the opening of this book would have made more sense to me, since the author seemed to assume a certain level of familiarity with the characters and situation. As it was, I struggled to follow the story or even separate one character from another. (If I'd had any inkling of how silly the resolution was going to be, I wouldn't have bothered.) And really, I doubt that reading the previous novels would have made a difference. There was a hollow quality to the narrative that made it difficult for me to distinguish between the indistinguishable characters or even care much what happened to them. Definitely not up to the standard of Millar's later work.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a certified fan of Margaret Millar but this one, one of her early books, was only fair. The mystery angle is not anything at all gripping, and one doesn't get to really know any of the characters until the story is more than half over. And, even then, they aren't particularly interesting. Miss Millar does make sure we recognize this is a story for adults by bringing in some frank dialogue, and there are a few entertaining scenes. But the thing just kind of rolls along until it reaches its finish.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for one of Margaret Millar's earliest published works. I thought the mystery progressed pretty well. The pacing is good, and we are given clues at a constant rate. I never guessed Jane was the murderer, even after the revelation by the handwriting expert that the letter warning of the murder was probably written by a woman. Dinah makes a much more likely suspect because she seems so determined to make herself unliked. I wish I could have read the first two Paul Prye mysteries to get some experience with his character, but this was the only one the library had. The inspector seems awfully quick to let Prye into his confidence, and even have him do some of the detective work, after being overly suspicious when they first meet.

Most of Prye's explanation of how and why Jane commits the murders makes sense, but I have a few little problems with it. It's hard to believe that Jane would even think to poison herself first to deflect suspicion, and she manages to pick a method that doesn't inflict any lasting effects. Her using parts of Duncan's letter to her in the warning letter to Prye doesn't seem to serve a purpose. It only works if Duncan's death is ruled an accident; only then can it be believed that Duncan really tried to murder his sister, and the call to the hospital to say what kind of poison she was given rules out Duncan as the poisoner. Jane's attempt to show that someone else stole the letter and copied parts from it meets with the same problems. Next is Duncan's murder. No one could know what time Duncan would wander home. If he had come home earlier while the rest of the household was still awake, or the next morning, Jane would miss her opportunity to kill him. Unless he has a habit of getting drunk in the afternoon and coming home at midnight, Jane gets awfully lucky. Jackson says the door is the kind that locks itself automatically, so no one can open it from the outside without a key. However, Duncan finds it actually unlcked, so Jane must have left it ajar or jammed something into the bolt, and she would have to be sitting in the hall waiting for him. Finally, I find it surprising, although possible, that Jane thinks to cover her tracks with Sammy Twist. On the other hand, it was pretty stupid to lure him to the house where someone could have seen one of them, or gone into the bathroom and found the sheets tied to the toilet (incidentally, would the toilet be strong enough and firmly attached enough to support her weight?). She also tells him to knock on the back door, so she has to make sure to knock him out before he knocks, or the policeman stationed in the house would probably hear. She also must be awfully strong to get hom from the back door to the garage, however far that is, and actually lift him up into the rumble seat of Prye's car. So, Jane as murderer: I'll buy it, but I don't really like it.

There is a certain lack of emotion, despite all the angry words. Prye and Nora were getting married, and aside from him kissing her twice in the whole novel, we hardly see that they care about eachother at all, and they hardly even speak to eachother. Nora gets very little dialogue period, and is probably the most boring character in the family. I also don't know how Nora feels about any of her cousins, besides getting pretty tired of listening to them after a couple days, as anyone would. She invites Dinah and Jane to be her bridesmaids, so she must like them somewhat, unless it was the custom to use relatives instead of friends in those days. Mrs. Shane doesn't seem to moved by any of the events, except to constantly go back to the wedding gifts. Worrying about manners and propriety must be her coping mechanism. I also found it odd than Inspector Sands keeps asking Nora questions about the was the household is run, which I would think he would ask her mother, such as about the servants, and the heating of the basement. I thought for sure the money was hidden in the air conditioning unit that is no longer used, since I see no other reason for it to be dragged into the story. I admit I don't know why Dennis started a fire in the fireplace after, presumably, discovering the money hidden behind it. I don't know why that would make him think that would make someone else less likely to find it there. The other alternative is that Jane started the fire for the same reason, but Prye doesn't allow for that in his timeline of her actions.

Overall I enjoyed the read, and I know from reading a few of Millar's later novels that her writing improves across the board, and she is definitely worth reading. An Air That Kills is my favorite so far.

[Peter Herrmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well crafted, but still rates only 2-stars (for me) because the main characters seemed devoid of personality. As another reviewer here mentions, there is an emotional vacuum throughout. I only tried this Millar mystery because I like Sue Grafton's series (the Kinsey Milhone character), and
Grafton has said that Ross MacDonald was a big influence on her, and Margaret Millar was married to Ross MacDonald and well-known in her own right (back in the day; doubtful whether many people nowadays know who Millar was). Oddly I didn't care either for the 1 Ross MacDonald book that I tried ('The Wycherly Woman'). Probably for the same reason: the protagonist didn't seem to have any personality.

(Although I very much like the Travis McGee series by MacDonald's namesake, John D. MacDonald. Can't remember what Grafton says - if anything? - about John D. as a writer.)

Maybe, in other Millar books with these protagonists (Inspector Sands, Dr. Prye), a personality would begin to emerge. But life is too short. I say this particular Millar book was well-crafted because the dialogue is clever (at times), and Inspector Sands and Dr. Prye always seem to be 1-step ahead of me. But fundamentally, about 1/3 into the book, I ceased to care who really did the crime.

[Zora · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the other book of hers was, this is dated in many ways, the most notable being how many times women are slapped in it.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: in an anonymous letter to Dr. Prye, an unknown person warns of his intentions. He tells Prye he will combine a wedding and a funeral.