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MacDougal Duff Mystery #1
Lay On, Mac Duff!
The Edgar-winning author of The Case of the Weird Sisters pens another tale of suspense, betrayal, and murder. Young Bessie Gibbon witnesses an odd game of Parcheesi at the home of her wealthy uncle. He and his friends are playing as if their lives depended on the game's outcome. And later that evening, one of them is found dead -- with the red Parcheesi marker on his body.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
46 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Armstrong
172 books74 followersFull name Charlotte Armstrong Lewi. Wrote 29 novels, plus short stories and plays under the name Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine. Additional writing jobs: New York Times (advertising department), Breath of the Avenue (fashion reporter).
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews
September 13, 2023
So far as I can recall this is the first Charlotte Armstrong mystery I've read. Despite this one being overly wordy I will probably try another.
It is a very clue driven book replete with timetables, clocks, temperatures, motives, possibilities and involved discussions of same for the armchair detective to puzzle over. I prefer more emphasis on the characters than the puzzle. I have little interest in closely examining such things as time tables. Fortunately Ms. Armstrong gives us both puzzles and interesting characters and no diagrams. However the group attempting to solve the mystery do blather on a bit much without really advancing the puzzle solving or character development.
Sometimes an epilogue is a nice thing at the end of a book. In this case, Chapter 19 which serves as an epilogue, is wordy and unnecessarily drawn out like some other parts of the book. But it does serve to leave readers with a good feeling. As the old chestnut goes, "All's well that ends well."
It is a very clue driven book replete with timetables, clocks, temperatures, motives, possibilities and involved discussions of same for the armchair detective to puzzle over. I prefer more emphasis on the characters than the puzzle. I have little interest in closely examining such things as time tables. Fortunately Ms. Armstrong gives us both puzzles and interesting characters and no diagrams. However the group attempting to solve the mystery do blather on a bit much without really advancing the puzzle solving or character development.
Sometimes an epilogue is a nice thing at the end of a book. In this case, Chapter 19 which serves as an epilogue, is wordy and unnecessarily drawn out like some other parts of the book. But it does serve to leave readers with a good feeling. As the old chestnut goes, "All's well that ends well."
April 23, 2017
This was so much fun. I had no idea Charlotte Armstrong wrote like this – I thought of her as "just" a writer of gothics. But this was a lovely little (in that it wasn't terribly long) classic mystery, and it sets in me a deep need to go get more Armstrong. That's one of the great things about reading authors who are now finished and gone – their body of work is extant and ready to be devoured.
Her character descriptions are wonderful.
- His voice was rich and deep and softly on a leash, as if there were volumes more of it, as if he could, if he wished, fill the whole stairwell with sound and as if it would be no effort at all for him to do so.
- He used a caressing (I suppose he thought it was fatherly) tone when he spoke to her, but all the time his eyes were running busily up and down on errands of their own.
- He had another man with him, a kind of echo, who stood and fastened his eyes on us as if he'd read how to do it in a correspondence course.
- "J.J. Jones?" "Clear and warm," I said, feeling sleepy, "and bright and warm."
Even the main character, Bessie, who is the tale's narrator, comes off the page vividly. She is young, naïve, smart, trying to stay afloat in a new atmosphere. "It just seemed to me that somebody ought to stay home and worry." She makes an assumption about the murder that occurs and runs away with it, perhaps fogging the truth, at least for the reader following her through the events. Before long, she's clinging to the only solidity she can find in Mr. J.J. Jones, not sure who else to trust. (She's actually not so naïve as all that, perhaps: "Look, Bessie, have you never read The Sheik?" "Of course I read it. It was forbidden.")
It's a smart book. MacDougal Duff comes into the picture as a very clever friend of Jones, who is expected to unravel the mystery. And Armstrong's handling of his name is terrific. There's a lesson to be learned here:
"But listen, don't say anything to him out of Shakespeare."
"Wh–what?"
"Mac's likely to think poorly of people who say 'Lay on, Mac Duff' to him. He says an intelligent person thinks of it, and realizes it's been said, and passes up the chance. But a dumbbell is so pleased with his own cleverness, he always says it."
(I learned another lesson as well – I didn't know there were twenty blocks to a mile in New York. Filed away for reference.)
For so short a book, there are some wonderful mini-essays, such as on the connection between history and detection and imagination, and whether there is such a thing, truly, as cold-blooded murder. And charity – "so often a mistake unless one knows exactly what one is doing."
This is a solid, thoughtfully told mystery, told with an assurance and flair that lets it fit very nicely into the Golden Age of mysteries. The accidental red herring of Bessie's assumption, the way the events of the game of Parcheesi at the start of the story are told – so serious when Bessie tells it, but so easy to dismiss – so hard for someone who was not there to take seriously, but so sinister … It was just a game. Right?
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review, with thanks.
Her character descriptions are wonderful.
- His voice was rich and deep and softly on a leash, as if there were volumes more of it, as if he could, if he wished, fill the whole stairwell with sound and as if it would be no effort at all for him to do so.
- He used a caressing (I suppose he thought it was fatherly) tone when he spoke to her, but all the time his eyes were running busily up and down on errands of their own.
- He had another man with him, a kind of echo, who stood and fastened his eyes on us as if he'd read how to do it in a correspondence course.
- "J.J. Jones?" "Clear and warm," I said, feeling sleepy, "and bright and warm."
Even the main character, Bessie, who is the tale's narrator, comes off the page vividly. She is young, naïve, smart, trying to stay afloat in a new atmosphere. "It just seemed to me that somebody ought to stay home and worry." She makes an assumption about the murder that occurs and runs away with it, perhaps fogging the truth, at least for the reader following her through the events. Before long, she's clinging to the only solidity she can find in Mr. J.J. Jones, not sure who else to trust. (She's actually not so naïve as all that, perhaps: "Look, Bessie, have you never read The Sheik?" "Of course I read it. It was forbidden.")
It's a smart book. MacDougal Duff comes into the picture as a very clever friend of Jones, who is expected to unravel the mystery. And Armstrong's handling of his name is terrific. There's a lesson to be learned here:
"But listen, don't say anything to him out of Shakespeare."
"Wh–what?"
"Mac's likely to think poorly of people who say 'Lay on, Mac Duff' to him. He says an intelligent person thinks of it, and realizes it's been said, and passes up the chance. But a dumbbell is so pleased with his own cleverness, he always says it."
(I learned another lesson as well – I didn't know there were twenty blocks to a mile in New York. Filed away for reference.)
For so short a book, there are some wonderful mini-essays, such as on the connection between history and detection and imagination, and whether there is such a thing, truly, as cold-blooded murder. And charity – "so often a mistake unless one knows exactly what one is doing."
This is a solid, thoughtfully told mystery, told with an assurance and flair that lets it fit very nicely into the Golden Age of mysteries. The accidental red herring of Bessie's assumption, the way the events of the game of Parcheesi at the start of the story are told – so serious when Bessie tells it, but so easy to dismiss – so hard for someone who was not there to take seriously, but so sinister … It was just a game. Right?
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review, with thanks.
March 29, 2018
it's cute. The story itself is negligible. The sexual politics - such as they are - are rather appalling to the modern eye. But - it was written in 1942. So Armstrong isn't offending against the prevailing custom of her time. It's just, reading as a modern reader, that you notice how kittenish and biddable the women are, despite not being in the least bit stupid.
Beyond that - the murder is not that interesting, somehow; I suspect because the people involved were never that well drawn in the sense of motives or relationships, not til toward the end of the book. However. The characters that Armstrong cares about are incredibly engaging; their chatter and conversation is so vivid and makes up so much of the book, you feel that you know them after just a minute or two, and you like them a minute or two after that. You like them because they are likable, in exactly the way that a real person can be.
In a scene close to the beginning, a young man - who's met our heroine about ten minutes before - takes his leave by telling her he'll bring a colleague by who can help (the murder has happened by now), and instructs her not to say anything funny about Shakespeare when she's introduced to him. This colleague of course is the Mac Duff of the title.
"Mac's likely to think poorly of people who say 'Lay on, Mac Duff' to him. He says an intelligent person thinks of it and realizes it's been said and passes up the chance. But a dumbbell is so pleased with his own cleverness, he always says it."
"I wont," I promised.
"I knew you wouldn't. Honest, I did. It's just that I want him to like you. My God, as if he won't. I'll shut my mouth, now that I've got both feet in, and go and get him. You'll hear from me." He jammed his hat on and wiggled his overcoat up around his neck. "You will indeed. So long." He looked at me, and I was sorry he was going. "So long, Window Face," he said tenderly and pumped my hand, once, in a funny old-fashioned way, and went.
Everything about that exchange - not just the dialogue, but the physical action - makes me think of old movies of this period; the quick-thinking, street-smart young man, with a hard left hook but not a spark of malice in him; the sweet disadvantaged but plucky girl from a farm somewhere; the 'love at first sight' that hasn't any smarm to it, but that you know is headed for marriage at a not very distant date. Dated is the word - this sort of friendly, naïve, innocent dialogue couldn't and shouldn't be written about two adults, and two strangers, in this day and age - and wouldn't, and despite saying that's for the best, I'm a little sad about it...
This place doesn't exist anymore - if it ever did, outside of story-telling. It's a fun place to visit.
Beyond that - the murder is not that interesting, somehow; I suspect because the people involved were never that well drawn in the sense of motives or relationships, not til toward the end of the book. However. The characters that Armstrong cares about are incredibly engaging; their chatter and conversation is so vivid and makes up so much of the book, you feel that you know them after just a minute or two, and you like them a minute or two after that. You like them because they are likable, in exactly the way that a real person can be.
In a scene close to the beginning, a young man - who's met our heroine about ten minutes before - takes his leave by telling her he'll bring a colleague by who can help (the murder has happened by now), and instructs her not to say anything funny about Shakespeare when she's introduced to him. This colleague of course is the Mac Duff of the title.
"Mac's likely to think poorly of people who say 'Lay on, Mac Duff' to him. He says an intelligent person thinks of it and realizes it's been said and passes up the chance. But a dumbbell is so pleased with his own cleverness, he always says it."
"I wont," I promised.
"I knew you wouldn't. Honest, I did. It's just that I want him to like you. My God, as if he won't. I'll shut my mouth, now that I've got both feet in, and go and get him. You'll hear from me." He jammed his hat on and wiggled his overcoat up around his neck. "You will indeed. So long." He looked at me, and I was sorry he was going. "So long, Window Face," he said tenderly and pumped my hand, once, in a funny old-fashioned way, and went.
Everything about that exchange - not just the dialogue, but the physical action - makes me think of old movies of this period; the quick-thinking, street-smart young man, with a hard left hook but not a spark of malice in him; the sweet disadvantaged but plucky girl from a farm somewhere; the 'love at first sight' that hasn't any smarm to it, but that you know is headed for marriage at a not very distant date. Dated is the word - this sort of friendly, naïve, innocent dialogue couldn't and shouldn't be written about two adults, and two strangers, in this day and age - and wouldn't, and despite saying that's for the best, I'm a little sad about it...
This place doesn't exist anymore - if it ever did, outside of story-telling. It's a fun place to visit.
June 11, 2023
Mystery bookworm
This fast paced murder mystery has the main character Bessie romantically attached to newspaper reporter J J in less than three days. Now a 19 year old orphan, Bessie has come to New York City to stay with her maternal uncle whom she doesn't know. One murder becomes two and Bessie fears her uncle is the murderer. Her Aunt Lina doesn't believe it and encourages the help of MacDougall Duff, a retired history professor turned amateur detective. The third and final murder makes clear the guilty one and everything turns out fine! I have always enjoyed Armstrong's mysteries for the great characters and simpler plots. Great read!
This fast paced murder mystery has the main character Bessie romantically attached to newspaper reporter J J in less than three days. Now a 19 year old orphan, Bessie has come to New York City to stay with her maternal uncle whom she doesn't know. One murder becomes two and Bessie fears her uncle is the murderer. Her Aunt Lina doesn't believe it and encourages the help of MacDougall Duff, a retired history professor turned amateur detective. The third and final murder makes clear the guilty one and everything turns out fine! I have always enjoyed Armstrong's mysteries for the great characters and simpler plots. Great read!
June 9, 2022
Four business partners play a tension-laden game of Parcheesi. Later that night, one is killed. Then another. Who is responsible? Will Bessie, innocent country girl and pastor’s daughter, be the next victim?
February 13, 2019
This was Armstrong's first novel, and it shows. The story is told back-end-foremost, at one remove, by a character who is not even directly involved. As a result, the text is awfully talky. Not so much "tell not show" as hash and rehash. She hears stuff, and is asked stuff about stuff she never witnesses. There are three corpses, and she never sees any of them, or even the murder scene. It all takes place offstage, with the cops etc hardly in evidence. Oh she is questioned, but even with a murder in the house, on the same floor, we never see hide nor hair of it. Why do authors of this type always (and still, these days) feel that citing previous successful cases lends their detective (or philosopher, in Mac Duff's case) more authenticity? Maybe the first few it did, but these days, you just roll your eyes. Those previous cases are never written up, either, which is annoying. Even Kerry Greenwood is guilty of it, when she repeatedly mentions the case of the Spanish ambassador's kitten!
I don't know why Armstrong, Wentworth et al always felt obliged to include RO-mance in their mysteries. The main character is pleasant enough, but awfully prissy, and even though I have spent 36 years and counting married to my own love at first sight, I wondered how her whirlwind romance would play out at 30 dollars a week in NYC, even in 1942. However I did enjoy this one more than some of Armstrong's later work, so three stars.
I don't know why Armstrong, Wentworth et al always felt obliged to include RO-mance in their mysteries. The main character is pleasant enough, but awfully prissy, and even though I have spent 36 years and counting married to my own love at first sight, I wondered how her whirlwind romance would play out at 30 dollars a week in NYC, even in 1942. However I did enjoy this one more than some of Armstrong's later work, so three stars.
November 17, 2025
I've had this paperback for over 20 years just sitting on my huge TBR bookcase. I bought a ton of these gothic suspense looking covers for just pennies back in the day when most people were just tossing these books out in the trash because no one wanted them. I knew that one day I would get around to reading them and that day was today. As so many of these gothic suspense novels have turned out, it was just more of a murder mystery, which I enjoy. Nothing vulgar, no blood and guts, nothing sexual, just enjoyable mystery. I really liked it. Glad I finally got around to reading this book that was written in 1942.
May 29, 2021
Written in the '40s, this interesting mystery does present occasional attitudes that grate against my contemporary attitudes and beliefs (minimizing women in general and POC in a few instances). Pushing through by holding to solving the multiple murders and enjoying the conversations and the character developments, was well worth the time invested. Charlotte Armstrong's books--though often a window into past attitudes no longer credited by sensible people--do explore the evil and the good, as well as the merely human and fallible.
May 30, 2021
Early Bird Book Deal | A little too obvious for my taste | Nothing exciting here, the murders, the characters, the motive, all of it was a bit bland. But the writing quality is good, and I'll read the next in the set.
September 23, 2023
A Good Start
Liked the Gift Shop better (too much use of classic detective novel tiny inconsequential clues of time and space and broken clocks) but the character development is not to be missed. Armstrong shines as a psych profiler.
Liked the Gift Shop better (too much use of classic detective novel tiny inconsequential clues of time and space and broken clocks) but the character development is not to be missed. Armstrong shines as a psych profiler.
October 4, 2017
I super enjoyed this. Apparently I have read Armstrong before (or so goodreads tells me), but I've no memory of them. That should change, I think.
November 23, 2018
I did very much enjoy this book. She did a lovely job building the suspense and fear.
July 5, 2019
Thoroughly enjoyable, fast-paced thriller. A quick, fun read.
March 18, 2023
Interesting, though pretty pat and I think seasoned mystery readers will spot the killer easily.
June 30, 2024
Fun classic mystery and interesting slice of early 1940s life. Ridiculous twist about one character at the very end took it down a star.
June 19, 2025
3 3/4 stars
A nice, old-fashioned cozy mystery
A nice, old-fashioned cozy mystery
January 14, 2022
AUTHOR . Armstrong, Charlotte
TITLE Lay on, Mac Duff!
DATE READ 01/02/22
RATING 4.5/B+
FIRST SENTENCE
GENRE/PUB DATE/FORMAT/LENGTH Mystery/1942/Kindle/183 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE #1 MacDougal Duff
CHALLENGE Good Reads 2021 2/127
GROUP READ
TIME/PLACE 1940’s / NY
CHARACTERS Bessie Gibson/ 20 year old/ Uncle Charles
COMMENTS I am so glad I read this one – had Charlotte Armstrong confused w/ Charlotte MacLeod and had set it aside. 2 very different authors. I enjoyed the characters/era and plot! Will read on in this trilogy!
TITLE Lay on, Mac Duff!
DATE READ 01/02/22
RATING 4.5/B+
FIRST SENTENCE
GENRE/PUB DATE/FORMAT/LENGTH Mystery/1942/Kindle/183 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE #1 MacDougal Duff
CHALLENGE Good Reads 2021 2/127
GROUP READ
TIME/PLACE 1940’s / NY
CHARACTERS Bessie Gibson/ 20 year old/ Uncle Charles
COMMENTS I am so glad I read this one – had Charlotte Armstrong confused w/ Charlotte MacLeod and had set it aside. 2 very different authors. I enjoyed the characters/era and plot! Will read on in this trilogy!
September 17, 2023
It's one of those books that's decent enough that I might read all the way to the end, unless I stop and ask myself "if this were a library book due today, would I bother to take it out again so I could finish it?" ... and if the answer is no, then I move on to something more exciting. There's no shortage of books.
Didn't particularly care for any character, for the tone, for the plot, etc. It acts like it wants to be a Gothic novel (which were so popular in the 60s/70s), orphaned girl taken in by mysterious rich uncle, etc. etc., but then it rapidly turns into a slightly weird mystery (weird in that characters aren't behaving like humans, that old complaint of mine). This was published originally in 1942, so perhaps too early to go the full Gothic, but its inclinations are showing. But ugh, the plot!
People fall in love immediately—really immediately, like after a few sentences, not even after one date, or one evening at the ball, but instantly—there's a furious, intense, high-stakes game of, wait for it, Parcheesi (at this point I wondered if aliens with only a cursory knowledge of Earth had taken over the writing), it's set in New York City but the main character doesn't seem to notice that, etc. etc. etc. It's just odd.
So with about 2500 books on my to-read list currently, I'm sure this isn't going to turn into a favourite. That's the goal: to only read books I love. Once I realise a book will not be turning a corner and morph into gloriousness (as Titus Groan did after 50 pages or so), I stop. It's not giving up, it's moving forward.
This was her first novel, by the way, and I've read a later one that I liked, so I'm going to assume she got better, and I will try more of hers, with a wary eye.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
Didn't particularly care for any character, for the tone, for the plot, etc. It acts like it wants to be a Gothic novel (which were so popular in the 60s/70s), orphaned girl taken in by mysterious rich uncle, etc. etc., but then it rapidly turns into a slightly weird mystery (weird in that characters aren't behaving like humans, that old complaint of mine). This was published originally in 1942, so perhaps too early to go the full Gothic, but its inclinations are showing. But ugh, the plot!
People fall in love immediately—really immediately, like after a few sentences, not even after one date, or one evening at the ball, but instantly—there's a furious, intense, high-stakes game of, wait for it, Parcheesi (at this point I wondered if aliens with only a cursory knowledge of Earth had taken over the writing), it's set in New York City but the main character doesn't seem to notice that, etc. etc. etc. It's just odd.
So with about 2500 books on my to-read list currently, I'm sure this isn't going to turn into a favourite. That's the goal: to only read books I love. Once I realise a book will not be turning a corner and morph into gloriousness (as Titus Groan did after 50 pages or so), I stop. It's not giving up, it's moving forward.
This was her first novel, by the way, and I've read a later one that I liked, so I'm going to assume she got better, and I will try more of hers, with a wary eye.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
July 25, 2012
I know I said in my review of The Chocolate Cobweb, that I wouldn't be all that eager to grab another Charlotte Armstrong any time soon. But Lay On, Mac Duff! has been on my TBR (to be found) list for a very long time and I was able to get my hands on it this weekend. That turned out to be a very good thing. Now I'm hoping that maybe the chocolate book was a fluke--or perhaps Armstrong was just trying out some really weird dialogue experiments.
Lay On, Mac Duff! tells the story of newly orphaned Bessie Gibbon who goes to live with her wealthy uncle and his much younger wife. On her very first night, she witnesses a very odd Parcheesi game between her uncle and three "friends." All four men play with intensity...as if their lives depend on the outcome! As well it may. Later that same night one of the men is found shot to death with a red playing piece on his body Is it possible that Bessie's uncle is the murderer? Or is it one of the other men? Or even Aunt Lina, the pretty young wife?
Armstrong's debut novel is a fun, light, cozy little murder. We have our very small set of suspects...a set that keeps getting smaller as the body count rises. It has everything one might want...a large house full of creepy, midnight shenanigans, faithful servants, a love interest for Bessie...and, for me, an amateur detective who used to be a history professor. (I love an academic twist to my mysteries!) Armstrong weaves a very strong tale of murder...that was fun even if I did spot the murderer early on. The characters are finely drawn and the atmosphere is just right. Hopefully, her other novels are more like this and less like the chocolate let-down. Three and a half stars out of five.
This review was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
Lay On, Mac Duff! tells the story of newly orphaned Bessie Gibbon who goes to live with her wealthy uncle and his much younger wife. On her very first night, she witnesses a very odd Parcheesi game between her uncle and three "friends." All four men play with intensity...as if their lives depend on the outcome! As well it may. Later that same night one of the men is found shot to death with a red playing piece on his body Is it possible that Bessie's uncle is the murderer? Or is it one of the other men? Or even Aunt Lina, the pretty young wife?
Armstrong's debut novel is a fun, light, cozy little murder. We have our very small set of suspects...a set that keeps getting smaller as the body count rises. It has everything one might want...a large house full of creepy, midnight shenanigans, faithful servants, a love interest for Bessie...and, for me, an amateur detective who used to be a history professor. (I love an academic twist to my mysteries!) Armstrong weaves a very strong tale of murder...that was fun even if I did spot the murderer early on. The characters are finely drawn and the atmosphere is just right. Hopefully, her other novels are more like this and less like the chocolate let-down. Three and a half stars out of five.
This review was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
December 16, 2012
This was a pretty good mystery, especially for being the author’s first published novel. I could not find any unanswered questions or other details to nitpick, as I often do. The narration makes the story seem light at the beginning, but it gets serious fast. I was reminded of The Mysteries of Udolpho and And Then There Were None in various places. And there’s a paragraph where J.J. is describing Mac Duff’s house which reminded me very much of the description of the victim’s house in Ellery Queen’s Tragedy of X, right down to the house overlooking a river, and being in New York. It gave me déjà vu and made me think I’d read this book before, but I haven’t. All the seriousness and gothic fear of running around a big old house in the dark, and making sure they never disturb Uncle Charles, is balanced, probably over-balanced, by the ridiculous way that Bessie and J.J. decide they’re in love with each other after about an hour’s acquaintance. All the same, I enjoyed the mystery. It’s sort of easy to figure out whodunit, but the how-did-he-do-it is more of a challenge.
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