Death and Letters

Henry Gamadge #15

by Elizabeth Daly

Henry Gamadge is summoned to a secluded estate by way of a crossword puzzle, the only means of communication for a widow being held captive by her relatives. They claim she’s lost her mind; she thinks they have shut her away to keep her from spilling on her late husband’s suspicious suicide. Gamadge knows that a woman who can convey her situation in the space of a crossword is most definitely in possession of her mental faculties. But can he sort out the secrets of a clan so scandal-averse they would do anything to avoid it?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Historical Fiction, Suspense, Cozy, New York

199 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1950

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

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was delighted to find this one Elizabeth Daly book on the shelf at my library. Felony & Mayhem press republished the 16 books in the series featuring Gamadge, rare bookseller and investigator of crime.
I do enjoy my "civilized" crime and will hope to secure more of these books in future.
This one starts out with a dignified, intelligent upper class woman being held prisoner in the family home of her recently deceased husband. How this came about is a very interesting tale.
1940's New York

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Bird Book Deal | Felt like a short story, not a novel. | Too limited in scope, there were only really two possible suspects and a house full of truly awful people, leading to what might be a record-quick Gamadge solution. I did very much enjoy the scene picking up the client, though.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a secluded estate along the Hudson River is where Glendon Coldfield suddenly committed suicide. Why? Is his widow a prisoner?

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

This mystery begins promisingly--with a women concealing a desperate plea for help in a crossword grid, and slipping it into the mail under the nose of an officious nurse. The message is of course directed to Henry Gamadge, a friend of a friend, and an investigator, although he usually focuses on historical documents. Persuaded that the woman, Sylvia Coldfield, is being held prisoner by her in-laws, Gamadge collects his erstwhile lab assistant, Harold, and they embark on a brazen rescue mission.
From there, the story grinds to a slow, tedious stroll. Murder is committed, but one occurs before the story begins, and another happens "offstage," reported by third parties. The motive involves letters of an obscure Victorian poet; someone has stolen them and sold them, and is trying to prevent anyone in the Coldfield family from finding out. We spend time with characters who prove to be peripheral, and no time with the actual murderer and a jealous lover. Red herrings are dragged before us but few hold our interest. Henry expresses concern that someone else may be killed, but there is no real urgency to the proceedings. And the story comes to a somewhat flat conclusion.
If you must read an Elizabeth Daly, choose a better reviewed volume. Give this one a pass. It's entirely forgettable.

[Chazzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

It starts with two crossword puzzles. They had been sent to Gamadge direct. Someone has used them to send a coded message. A message asking for help in escaping.

Sylvia Coldfield felt she was being held prisoner at her husband’s family estate. The premise was she had had a breakdown after her husband died. Suicide by sleep pills was the verdict, but Sylvia felt different, especially after she almost died from the same pills — but she hadn’t taken any herself!

Gamache orchestrates a slick removal of Sylvia, under the noses of Sylvia’s in-laws. He then proceeds to investigate the death of Sylvia’s husband and the secrets within the family tied to it.
Racy letters from an older generation, greed, a married woman lusting after a younger man and more, all hidden behind a mask of respectability.

A bit of Agatha Christie, Martha Graves and Louise Penny make Daly’s Gamadge series a solid read for me.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 5 out of 5]

When an elderly widow is imprisoned by her husband's family on the pretext of insanity, she contrives to smuggle out a crossword puzzle with details of her plight to amateur sleuth Henry Gamadge, who undertakes her rescue. Then Henry undertakes an investigation into her husband's sudden death. The Saturday Review of Literature described it in 1950 as "intelligent 'literary' detecting, poignant pictures of a proud, peculiar, & tragic family, & startling denouement. Good."
One of Garland's 50 CLASSICS OF CRIME FICTION 1950-1975,

[Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't love this book. Or like it. There were just too many implausible bits. If you were a psychiatrist who came to believe your patient was being poisoned, would you send her back home to the same people without talking to the police? If you are going to write a letter and hide it inside of another letter, what is the point of writing it in code on a crossword puzzle?
Couldn't buy the storyline, found the characters tiresome.

[Lelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light mystery that seems to pose very little challenge for Gamadge. This was my first introduction to Elizabeth Daly and Henry Gamadge, so I'm not sure if all Gamadge mysteries resolve themselves this effortlessly. The characters did exaclty what Daly and Gamadge needed them to do, causing me so little anxiety that I was surprised to find myself at the end of the book.

[John R. Goyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

It may have been a mistake to start at #15 - I enjoyed this book but thought the plot seemed overly complex and the character of Gamadge underdeveloped. It was also not the typical storyline for murder mysteries which can be a good thing in itself, but maybe I wasn't ready for it. In any case, I'm holding back judgement on this new author to me for another book or two. Stand by...

[Lynn Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't Always Know

My first Henry Gamadge detective story. He has a way about him that keeps you in the dark through to the ending. Pretty much fun of you enjoy mysteries from some time back.But of Noir.

[Cindy Ladensack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course the crossword puzzle angle was intriguing—and I wish it had been more a part of the mystery, honestly. The eventual summing up felt a bit rushed, and Gamadge also was a bit careless about eating and drinking in the company of a poisoner.

[Jlnpeacock Peacock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an older style mystery and was quite enjoyable. Some of the terms and slang are dated and one needs to think a bit to catch the meaning, but this just added to the charm of the book for me. I found Mr. Gamadge and his wife a fascinating pair.

[Sharla · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some improbabilities, especially with red herrings but I was willing to overlook them. If you've read Elizabeth Daly this far and enjoyed her writing style and characters, you'll like this one too. I enjoyed it in spite of any weakness in how things play out.

[Alan Pringle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic, well written, good puzzle.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really old school, extremely well-written and plotted.

[Susan Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is one of the best in the series!

[Angie Boyter]

I could not get into this book. The premise just did not grab me or appeal to me.

[Kelvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 1953 crime novel written by American mystery writer Elizabeth Daly and is the 15th book in her series featuring amateur detective, author, and bibliophile Henry Gamadge. The setting is in 1949 in New York City. It is a short book, fast paced and well written. It is a mix of cozy mystery and a thriller. The plot is also quite creative.

Spoiler Alert. The book started with Gamadge receiving a cryptic letter from Mrs Sylvia Coldfield, a 40-year-old widow who has been held captive by her relatives in a mansion called The Maples, at a city called Cliffside near New York City. Gamadge was able to decipher the coded SOS message, went to The Maples, and rescued Sylvia. What follows then was Gamadge discovering a criminal plot that includes a theft, a murder, and an attempted murder.

The story is about the Coldfield family, an old New York family that used to be very rich but has fallen on hard times in the current generation. Three brothers (Ames Coldfield, Ira Coldfield, and Glendon Coldfield) and their families live in a large mansion called The Maples. Sylvia’s husband, Glendon, died from an overdose of sleeping pills a few months ago. This old family, who prides on its family name and privacy, quietly called it an accident and closed the case. Later, Sylvia herself almost died from an overdose of the same sleeping pills after drinking some soup. When Sylvia suggested to the family that someone in the Coldfield household is a homicidal maniac, the family turned on her and locked her up in the big house, announced her as insane and wanted to get her committed. Before that can happen, however, Gamadge got her out and hid her.

Gamadge then investigated Sylvia’s claims. Through some clever detective work, Gamadge was able to discover who the poisoner is. What happened was caused by an affair Glendon’s grandmother Mrs. Deane Coldfield (now dead) had more than 70 years ago in 1875. Grandma Coldfield (already married to Deane Coldfield at the time) had a secret affair with one of the most famous British poets at the time, Mark Garthwain. Garthwain wrote her 11 compromising love letters. The letters were not known to exist until they were discovered by Ames and Glendon in the 1940s when they were going through some family documents. The Coldfields, being a proud family, do not want the perceived family scandal to ever come out, but they do not want to destroy the family heirloom either. Unfortunately for them, Ira Coldfield’s daughter, Susan, stole the letters and used an agent to sell it to a British collector in March 1948 for $10,000, a large sum of money in 1940s. Because of the use of the agent, no one knows who the real seller was. When the literary magazine University Quarterly announced in January 1949 the sensational discovery of the now famous “Letters to an Unknown”, printing some excerpts of the 11 love letters, Glendon realized someone in the household has stolen the letters. Through some fine detective work using fingerprints, Glendon discovered Susan was the thief. In order to avoid being denounced by the family as a traitor who has sold out the family honor, Susan put an overdose of sleeping pills in Glendon’s lemonade and killed him. Later, when Sylvia started asking questions, she tried to kill Sylvia as well but failed. Gamadge used a logical step by step approach in his detection. Once he suspected the key to the puzzle is the Garthwain letters, he first hunted down the lawyer representing the agent of the seller. He then figured out who the agent is, and through him were able to identify Susan as the seller. Gamadge figured all these out and got Susan’s accomplice (the agent) William Venner to turn on her. When Susan tried to kill Venner, Venner killed her instead.

[Rhonda Valentine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Death and Letters is well written in terms of flow and syntax, however, it is in early 20th Century American vernacular so I needed to look up phrases periodically in order to comprehend what I was reading. That's not a criticism - it's an observation. There was way too much dialogue and very little description of place or character. New characters kept popping up unexpectedly without introduction all over the place; peripheral characters, but new ones nevertheless.
At the beginning of the book, the reader is told of a death that occurs before the action in the book takes place. Then an unexpected murder takes place at the end of the book. In fact, it’s so unexpected and so out of place that it’s implausible and anticlimactic.
The letters are love letters exchanged between a married member of the family to whom the dead victims belong and a famous poet. As with the first death and the subsequent imprisoning of the deceased's wife for his murder in order to avoid scandal, so too does the family seek to prevent scandal regarding the love affair. Different family members are paranoid about not muddying the waters and they’ll go to any length to prevent scandal. Their paranoia makes them unreasonable and unpleasant characters. I didn’t even warm to the main character, the crime investigator Henry Gamadge, whom one would expect to like since he is a respectable married man and an antique book aficionado.
I didn’t love this book. It didn’t grab my attention, let alone keep it. Sometimes I read a mere page before falling asleep. I simply trundled along reading it, anticipating it might get better. But it didn’t. Disappointing, uninspiring and forgettable. I probably won't pick up any more Elizabeth Daly for a while.
.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the mysterious and unexpected death of Glendon Coldfield, his wife, Sylvia is kept incommunicado and a virtual prisoner by her family. She had voiced her opinion that her husband’s death wasn’t the result of accident or suicide as was a common conclusion. Her family thought she was suffering a mental relapse and didn’t want her ravings to put the family in a bad light. Unable to write letters or use the telephone, she devised an ingenious way to send her plea for help. She sends the message in the form of a crossword puzzle. The recipient of this appeal is Henry Gamadge, a well-known author, and innovative investigator. He rescues her from her imprisonment and embarks on discovering the mystery behind Glendon Coldfield’s death.
This story falls squarely in the genre cozy murder (an oxymoronic coupling of words that even Shakespeare would be proud of). Like many British novels, the horrors of murder are softened by nonsensical details. The emphasis being on the solution to the mystery and not the crime itself, blood, guts, and gore are kept to a minimum.

This book was published and printed in 1950, the year of my birth and cost just 50 cents. The now yellowing pages and fading print attests to its ripe old age of sixty-six, and the high acclaim and laurels it received then are now covered with the dust of time. In my opinion, writing has evolved and left the relics of the past far behind, making this book just short of extinct.

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bittersweet mystery where once again Gamage tries to save a life and uncover a murderer. This story involves a family who has kept a relative locked up under the assumption that she's insane. She gets a message out and is rescued.

From then though, Gamage works to uncover past evil deeds and tries to stop future ones. He half successful in his attempts. The end is a surprise though you see all the evidence and don't start to weed out your suspects until the end.

This story is near the end of the Gamage series.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mrs. Coldfield has only one chance to get a message to Henry Gamadge, and it's crucial that she do so. She doesn't know what her in-laws have planned for her since her husband's death. But Gamadge comes through, unveiling a sinister melange of theft and murder.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly confusing plot, but pretty solid characters. I liked the opening, with the plea for help from an imprisoned widow, and I really enjoyed the rescue.

[robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish Daly had written about 50 more books.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death and Letters is the second Henry Gamadge mystery by Elizabeth Daly that I've read this year. I am enjoying getting into the books very much.
Gamadge is a writer and a man who likes to explore the world of letters and writing, hiring himself out to verify the authenticity of antique correspondence. In Death and Letters he receives correspondence from Mrs. Coldfield, who is being held incommunicado by her family. She manages to send a request for assistance hidden in a crossword puzzle. Gamadge acts quickly to remove her from her situation and then investigates a possible murder of her husband.
The tale involves correspondence between a matriarch of the family, Coldfield's husband's grandmother and a famous English poet. In his unique style, Gamadge works through the case, trying to ascertain who in the family or maybe a close friend might have been involved in murdering Mrs. Coldfield's husband and attempting to murder her as well, and, if so, why?
Like the other Daly stories I've read so far, it's a nice meandering story. Gamadge is an interesting character, wealthy enough to be able to finance his investigations and with many acquaintances that he can use for sources of information. His wife is a nice assistant to his work and the way Daly moves her stories along keeps you interested. I guess it could be called a cozy mystery, but it is also an intelligent and enjoyable mystery. I will continue to search for Daly's books. She wrote 16 between 1940 and 1951 and I've read only 3 so far. Lots of enjoyment ahead for me. (3.5 stars)

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Click on the link below to read my full review:
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