Night Walk

Henry Gamadge #12

by Elizabeth Daly

The village of Frazer's Mills is a small, isolated village, where everyone knows everyone else and things haven't changed much (and the mills have been closed for quite some time). When murder suddenly intrudes upon this sedate rural backwater, Henry Gamadge arrives to solve the mystery and restore order. The novel is particularly remarkable for its tense opening chapters describing a prowler who walks around the village rattling doors and frightening the residents, as well as the descriptions of the local types who populate it.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Classics, Science Fiction, Crime, Golden Age Mystery, Suspense

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Elizabeth Daly (1878-1967) was born in New York City and educated at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She was a reader in English at Bryn Mawr and tutored in English and French. She was awarded an Edgar in 1960. Her series character is Henry Gamadge, an antiquarian book dealer.

Daly works in the footsteps of Jane Austen, offering an extraordinarily clear picture of society in her time through the interactions of a few characters. In that tradition, if you knew a person's family history, general type, and a few personal quirks, you could be said to know everything worth knowing about that person. Today the emphasis is on baring the darkest depths of psycho- and socio-pathology; contemporary readers raised on this style may find Ms. Daly both elitist and somewhat facile. But fans of classic movies and whodunits know that a focus on polished surfaces brings with it the possibility of hidden secrets and things unsaid; for those who disdain the obvious confessional style of today, the Gamadge books have much to recommend them.

Elizabeth Daly now seems sadly forgotten by many which a shame as all her books are superbly crafted and plotted, indeed she counted none other than Agatha Christie as one of her fans. She published sixteen books all of which featured her main series character Henry Gamadge. He is a bibliophile and expert on rare books and manuscripts which makes her books particularly appealing to fans of the bibliomystery. There was some disparity between UK and US releases some being published out of sequence, the bibliography shown follows the US editions which are the true firsts. Murder Listens In and Shroud for a Lady are re-titled reissues of earlier books.

Reviews

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Night Walk (1947) is the twelfth book to feature Elizabeth Daly's antiquarian book dealer and part-time sleuth, Henry Gamage. Gamage makes his way to the isolated village of Frazer's Mills when an old friend finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation. Garry Yates comes to the village in an effort to see his lady love on the sly. Rose Jenner's guardian doesn't like her to see strange young men--doesn't really like her meeting any young men at all, truth be told. But Yates has made her acquaintance and the two have fallen in love. He has the chance to be in the area, so he takes it.

He just happens to arrive on the very night that a mysterious prowler roams through the village, scaring various inhabitants. The prowler moves from Edgewood, a rather exclusive sanitarium, where s/he rattles Mrs. Norbury's door handle to trying to enter the Public Library where Hattie Bluett is working late on a donation of books, to leaving a fire axe outside the room that Yates is given at a local rooming house. But the prowler isn't finished. Because someone has entered the Carringtons' stately home (home of Rose Jenner) and killed her elderly guardian.

Yates is sure he'll be a suspect as soon as the police know he's Rose's suitor--a suitor who would have found no favor with old man Carrington. And even if he's lucky enough not to be suspected (he thinks he has an alibi), he still wants Gamage to get to the bottom of things for Rose's sake. Gamage goes undercover as an inmate of Edgewood (supposedly in need of recuperation from overwork) and soon he's following the footsteps of the prowler and tracking down clues. Appropriately enough, our bookish detective finds a vital clue in the local library and he's quite sure that prowler was no random maniac, but someone well-known to the deceased.

Gamage is a low-key detective who does his sleuthing primarily through conversation with the villagers and official help from local police (who have had a good word about him from his friends on the force in the city). A bit of reconstruction comes in handy as well. Daly offers up engaging characters and plays fair with her clues--making for an entertaining read. I particularly enjoyed the scenes in the library and the way she worked books into the plot. ★★★ and 3/4. (rounded to four here)

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[Shiloah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been wonderful living near my sisters for the past 1.5 years because we enjoy sister time. We recently went book shopping together and I found this gem on a classic mysteries paperback shelf. We also challenged each other to read 2 of the books we bought that day before our next shopping trip. Done! This was an interesting jaunt into an old American classic detective book. I didn’t guess the criminal and enjoyed the experience.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 2nd Henry Gamage mystery I've read. Elizabeth Daly started the series in 1940 and wrote 16 books. Gamage is a mysterious criminologist, he was involved in secret activities during WWII and has since been involved with old documents and papers, helping ascertain forgeries and such. He also finds himself involved solving mysteries and is somewhat similar to Margery Allingham's Albert Campion or Dorothy L. Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey.
Night Walk was Daly's 12th Gamage mystery. Gamage is asked by an acquaintance to assist in investigating a murder that took place in upper New York state at the small community of Frazer's Mills. His friend is in love with a local girl, the ward of the victim, and he fears that she might be a suspect. Gamage assumes the role of patient at a local sanatorium, obtains the police support for his independent investigation and thusly the story starts.
It's a cozy style of story telling. Gamage wanders about the local area, asking questions, quietly observing and ultimately coming up with a possible solution and final answer. It's all done in a genteel, interesting style. It's easy to fall into the locale, to like the people and enjoy Gamage as a perceptive, low key investigator. The final solution might seem a bit pat, but it does not take away from the overall enjoyment of the story.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Light of Other Days', Bob Shaw's 1966 near-debut short story (although he had been writing stories since 1954) is an acclaimed science fiction classic, a remarkable achievement in using one simple idea ('slow glass') to express human grief. It was justifiably shortlisted for a Nebula and a Hugo.

Shaw's first novel 'Night Walk' (1967) was then published. It shows the difficulty of moving from one idea and the short story to a full-blown pulp novel when you are still trapped in the tropes of a genre. It is a mixed bag but far from bad, just a mix of the imaginative and the unsatisfying.

On the uninspiring side, it is a somewhat cliched noir spy thriller transposed into space opera with the standard redhead love interest of the era and a villain in Cherkassky worthy of one of Mr. Bond's attention. Characterisation is locked into popular expectations of pulp sci fi purchases of the 1960s.

On the other hand, with Shaw still keeping down demanding day jobs while trying to make it as an author, quality does seem to keep trying to burst out of the formulae albeit in a somewhat unco-ordinated way. He may not be able to do a credible woman but he can do situation.

Just as his great story was interested in light so is his first novel, with the action centred on an intelligence agent using scarcely tested self-made technology to break out of prison and travel 1,000 miles across a wayward colony in order to escape ultimately to his home planet.

Our hero (Tallon) has been blinded while resisting arrest thanks to the sadistic Cherkassky. Sent to a high security prison, he manufactures techno-eyes, helped for her own reasons by a prison official (the love interest). The subsequent story depends entirely on this somewhat unstable gadgetry.

The blindness/resourcefulness equation is implausible but Shaw nevertheless creates a vigorous thriller out of the conceit. He is effective at deploying the interesting idea of the blind being able to plug into the vision of surrounding animals and people.

It is unusual to have a ruthless hero whose action depends on the sight of others nearby, including birds, dogs and rats. In this area, Shaw imaginatively excels at creating the spatial problems involved even if his story would not stand up over much to our current knowledge of animal perception.

It seems that Shaw suffered from eye issues at various times in his life. This might explain his concern with sight and light but this particular novel has few insights into blindness because our hero's ability to survive is, frankly, superhuman. The blindness is merely a trigger for thrills.

Every now and then, the novel has moments where it rises above the pulp framework - the time in the planetary penitientiary, an escape across treacherous marshlands, falling victim to a exploitative woman, various fights, the response to the possibility of long slow starvation lost in space.

This is a hard science space opera with a secondary technology sub-plot about interstellar travel that is barely under the control of its users. Towards the end, we are suitably bamboozled with advanced and no doubt impossible but highly imaginative astrophysics, essential for resolution.

The resolution is, of course, weak. I will not reveal it but the journey is far more interesting than the destination. I will not tell you if and how he gets the girl but I am sure you have guessed the answer to the 'if'. There is none of the emotional sophistication of the earlier short story.

Nevertheless, the book is still worth reading as an entertainment and because Shaw writes well regardless of implausibilities and pulp cliches. The implausibilities actually hang together quite well so that suspension of disbelief (necessary in any case in science fantasy) can be maintained.

[MaryJo Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how Good Reads got the description of this book so wrong - Amazon has it correct - so don't even read that as you consider this review.
Daly's Gamadge is a wonderfully clever amateur sleuth, time line the 1940's and a little after.
I've read several, never achieved Henry's level of deciphering what's really going on, so am always surprised at the solution.
In this case he is asked by a friend to incognito arrive in a very small village in New England to quietly help figure out why a supposed maniac quietly lurked from place to place on a quiet evening and ended up murdering someone in residence there.
Obviously the whole place is nervous and unsettled, maintaining their sanity only by assuring themselves it was a maniac that has moved on.
When another resident is killed the same way, the panic returns to the locals, and law enforcement
is kicking themselves for letting it happen, Gamadge manages to analyze the whole situation above emotional attachment and come to a tragic but much needed answer.
Strongly recommended for lovers of mid-20th century whodunits.

[Sharla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't be confused by the weird reviews if you like the Elizabeth Daly mysteries. Several of the reviews here are for the wrong book, a science fiction book of the same name written by Bob Shaw.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating 2.5 stars

The Night Walk I read is a cozy mystery.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is the deal? Is Daly too class-ist or squeamish to even contemplate a coldblooded murderer's trial, conviction, and hanging?

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mysterious prowler upsets the no-locked-doors peacefulness of the tiny hamlet of Frazer's Mills, first creeping into Edgewood, the rest home at the edge of the town, opening and closing a resident's door and escaping unseen before the elderly resident could look to to see who was there. Next, a guest at the local inn is disturbed by a noise outside his door... and the discovery of a fire axe, removed from it's place on the wall and left on the floor. Then the librarian glimpses a shadow outside her locked screen door. By the time the owner at Edgewood can alert the village of the prowler, a murder has occurred -- someone entered the Carrington's home at the opposite end of the village and bashed in the head of the senior Carrington.
Henry Gamadge is called in to see what he can make of it. A friend, Yates (the guest at the inn), is worried that his girl, the Carrington's ward, may be suspected when it's discovered that her alibi won't hold up -- she was with him instead of at the movies, and traveled home alone. But Gamadge is not concerned about the young lovers. He scents a darker purpose lurking in that village, and a second murder tips him to the culprit.
Elizabeth Daly's Night Walk preys on our fear of the terrors that hide in the darkness outisde our doors. Again, there is an inheritance in the plot. I begin to wonder if Ms. Daly didn't have a bug about inheritances--she wrote so often about them! A engaging read.

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard about this book on the Classic Mysteries podcast and thought it well-described.
Frazer's Mills, NY is a small town; one created of buildings rich people built for their former servants, though nowadays it is mainly inhabited by their grandchildren. Not a lot of new blood in town and now the current generations are starting to leave. But it's always been a safe town with most of the inhabitants leaving their doors perpetually unlocked. At least, it was safe until the night there was a prowler. One who checked many of the doors in town and ended up leaving one man dead. His family wasn't suspected, he was worth more to them alive than dead, and the police were baffled.
One young man was staying in some transient housing and was worried that he might be suspected. So he called in an old friend, Henry Gamadge, a man who was known to police for his help with solving with other murders.
Before the book is over, there will be another murder.
A book that flows nicely, keeps the plot moving with some descriptions of characters (though the vast numbers of people can get confusing) but not huge amounts about each person.

[Jacqueline Vick]

We meet the local characters one-by-one as a prowler attempts to break into several locations. It's a bit creepy, this image of doorknobs slowly turning as each character in turn wonders if they've locked or latched the door. The final visitation ends in murder.

This is my first Henry Gamadge (the 12th in the series) and I didn't find him too impressive. There was a tendency in some authors at the time (1947) to simply tell the reader how witty or deep or clever the character was, which may have raised my expectations. And I imagine that Daly had to build up her character as much as possible. Why?

Henry's problem is he's a specialist in paper, which extends to forgeries and, I guess, all things criminal related to paper. It seemed fortuitous that the final clue would be...paper. I have visions of the author regretting her choice after the first book. Possibly the second.

There is enough suspicion to go around, and I couldn't possibly have guessed at the motive, as it all revolved around this paper that no one but the killer knew existed. And there weren't any hints at the motive before then.

That said, her writing style and some of the characters kept me going until the end. If you don't mind a pleasant-enough mystery on a lazy day, this book will be fine.

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Daly is by most accounts one of America's "forgotten" mystery writers. She published a series of novels with lead character Henry Gamadge, a bibliophile who sometimes investigates mysteries. In this book, Gamadge visits the quiet town of Frazer's Mills at the request of a friend. A prowler has murdered a prominent citizen in the dead of night. A maniac, as most believe, or is there another explanation?

I found this book to be very entertaining, in large part because of Daly's writing style. The book is brief (less than 200 pages), yet the characters and setting are richly described and the story is not rushed. I was impressed at how quickly and easily the characters in this book became distinct individuals even after only a handful of chapters. Daly's description of the history and layout of Frazer's Mills was also easy to follow; some authors make it difficult to get a mental picture of the setting but that wasn't the case here. The mystery is why we come to the book, but it is the characters and setting that entice us to stay with it. That is well done here.

Kudos to Felony & Mayhem for bringing these books back into print. I will certainly track down more of the Gamadge books.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comfortable Read

Not as good as later volumes. A bit slow but still enjoyable. Interesting portrait of an old style village and its inhabitants.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
It took longer than average for Gamadge to first appear in this 12th book in the series - so long, in fact, that I was beginning to wonder if it was going to be a stand-alone rather than one of this series at all! He arrives at the behest of a friend and thus I guess it isn't too surprising that his expertise in books & documents only figures very slightly in the case (though they do play a part). I didn't see the solution coming at all which normally would cause me to bump up my rating to a 4*; I didn't do so in this case because I didn't feel that I could have figured it out, that certain knowledge Gamadge had wasn't made available to me the reader. Of course, now that I write that I can't name anything specific to corroborate my feeling!

[Carole Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I was not familiar with the Henry Gamadge mystery series. This is a book my sister passed on to me. A visitor to the village of Frazer's Mills in upstate New York happens upon the evidence that there is a prowler in the midst of this little quiet village. When a murder occurs, the people of the town are really upset and they all think that the prowler committed the murder. Well, Henry Gamadge arrives in the little town and meets the visitors and the villagers and goes about trying to solving the first murder and then another murder occurs. In all murder mysteries, the reader is trying to decide, who did the murder? I was surprised at the end, but that makes a good mystery.
4/19/2026. - This was a good mystery in that I didn't remember I had read it before!!

[Diane Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gamadge: “I also had a fact….it was that touch of the unusual that one always looks for and hopes to find in the background of a crime. Something unexpected, something off schedule, something that might possibly have had unusual results.”

Gamadge: “Criminology is always interesting. … you get such wonderful contemporary detail, and you don’t get it anywhere else, not in memories, not in memoirs, or letters, or even journals.”

[Jlnpeacock Peacock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Daly has been described as Agatha Christie's favorite American mystery writer. Miss Daly is a most enjoyable author. Her mysteries are comfortable for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most notable is that her hero is calm, kind, and never pompous. He can be extremely clever and intelligent without lording it over those about him. The story line in this was interesting with very charming people and places throughout the book. A pleasant read.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Bird Book Deal | Doesn't really feel like there's enough book here | Gamadge wanders aimlessly for about a day, then traps the killer. There's only one possible suspect throughout, the motive is poor and not even hinted at, and lots of page space is used on the theory of a maniac stranger, even though the reader knows that's not the solution of a golden age cozy mystery. A let-down.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quiet little village is stunned when one of the residents is beaten to death. Police suspect a wandering tramp must be responsible, but Henry Gamadge is not so sure.

I enjoyed this one, but I took off a bit because the villain was rather obvious. Still, I liked it. Thanks a bunch!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mysterious prowler startles the people of Frazer's Mills, but not until murder is committed do they realize they are under threat. One of the visitors to the quiet area turns out to be a friend of Henry Gamadge, who has a fairly good idea of just what happened.

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of what I consider, a stand-alone, story. It doesn't contain a number of other continuing characters that other stories have... at least not at the point of the crime itself.

A quiet who-done-it, and certainly tricky.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Night Walk takes Henry Gamadge out of town to Westchester County, and the ambience of the region is convincing (I knew it at a later era) and very much part of the book.

Daly is an undeservedly neglected classic.

[Cindy Ladensack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this may be my favorite among the Gamadge mysteries—the atmosphere of small-town suspense was well set up and the resolution nicely plotted as well. Was the mystery a bit transparent?—maybe, but there were some well placed (and resolved) red herrings that kept it from being too predictable.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a remote rural village in upstate New York, a center for harness racing a century ago, is terrorized by a homicidal prowler, bibliophile sleuth Henry Gamadge is called in by a young family friend to investigate.

[John R. Goyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable tale - most interesting in these stories is how at the end we get to see how Gamadge figured things and what he saw that we (I) missed... Nothing exceptional, but solid and a fine book to read.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stand alone Gamadge story that held my interest better than some of the previous ones. Clean writing produces nice atmosphere without being overwrought.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved how the book started out, with an unnamed, unseen figure roamed into and around people’s houses during the night … downright scary!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Daly's best.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was okay, but I wasn't taken with the detective, Henry Gamadge. He seemed to be two-dimensional. The crime solution was okay but not enough for me to continue with this series.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Great opening chapters set the week before labor day. This was a very enjoyable Gamadge mystery.