The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan

Hildegarde Withers #8

by Stuart Palmer, Otto Penzler

Hildegarde Withers is just your average school teacher—with above-average skills in the art of deduction. The New Yorker often finds herself investigating crimes led only by her own meddlesome curiosity, though her friends on the NYPD don’t mind when she solves their cases for them. After plans for a grand tour of Europe are interrupted by Germany’s invasion of Poland, Miss Withers heads to sunny Los Angeles instead, where her vacation finds her working as a technical advisor on the set of a film adaptation of the Lizzie Borden story. The producer has plans for an epic retelling of the historical killer’s patricidal spree—plans which are derailed when a screenwriter turns up dead. While the local authorities quickly deem his death accidental, Withers suspects otherwise and calls up a detective back home for advice. The two soon team up to catch a wily killer.


At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of the Golden Age American mystery novel.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Golden Age Mystery, Crime, Humor

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Pseudonyms Theodore Orchards, Jay Stewart

Stuart Palmer (1905–1968) was an American author of mysteries. Born in Baraboo, Wisconsin, Palmer worked a number of odd jobs—including apple picking, journalism, and copywriting—before publishing his first novel, the crime drama Ace of Jades, in 1931. It was with his second novel, however, that he established his writing career: The Penguin Pool Murder introduced Hildegarde Withers, a schoolmarm who, on a field trip to the New York Aquarium, discovers a dead body in the pool. Withers was an immensely popular character, and went on to star in thirteen more novels, including Miss Withers Regrets (1947) and Nipped in the Bud (1951). A master of intricate plotting, Palmer found success writing for Hollywood, where several of his books, including The Penguin Pool Murder, were filmed by RKO Pictures Inc.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This period piece evokes the Old Hollywood, and was published in 1941. Snoopy schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers is on sabbatical and visits California, where her reputation as a sleuth gets her a job as consultant for a new film on Lizzie Borden. She knows nothing about Borden, incidentally, but she's fascinated by the others working on the third floor of the Writers' Building, especially when one of them is murdered. The culprit seems to be the mysterious Derek Laval, but no one knows who he is or where to find him.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars - this blind-date-with-a-book was OK, but the title basically gives away who the murderer is, and the story started off so strangely that I almost quit reading it before I got through the first chapter. Things got better once I was introduced to Miss Hildegarde Withers - schoolteacher, amateur detective, and for some reason film consultant turned expert on Lizzie Borden.

The book was authored in either the late 1930s or early 1940s (copyright is 1941) so the language and pop culture references were very dated, and Withers and her detective friend (Oscar Piper) communicated largely by sending telegrams. Additionally, given the era in which this was written, there was several instances of casual, blatant racism and sexual harassment that were clearly not written for shock value or for the purpose of social commentary/discussion, but just because that's how things were (according to the intro the author wrote this book while in Hollywood writing screenplays, so he was probably just writing the environment he saw).

The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan is one of a series involving the same schoolteacher sleuth, and I think it falls into the "Golden Age" of amateur detective fiction (what today we call "cozy mysteries"). I don't really read cozy mysteries because I think they are rather formulaic and dull, and once you've read one cozy mystery by a given author you've read them all, and thus I won't be reading anything else by Palmer either.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Angie Boyter · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+ Spinster schoolteacher and sleuth extraordinaire Hildegarde Withers is vacationing in Los Angeles when she serendipitously gets a gig providing technical advice to a production company that is making a film of the story of the notorious Lizzie Borden. Of course, it is not long before a real death occurs (although not with an ax!), and Miss Withers finds herself working to solve a present-day mystery at the same time as she tries to keep the film producers true-to-life on the story of Lizzie Borden and along the way avoid being one of the murderer’s victims.
Three cheers for Otto Penzler’s new initiative to publish classic mysteries (Happy Hooligan was first published in 1941.) under the imprint of American Mystery Classics. The first cheers will be from fans of classics like the Hildegarde Withers series wanting to recapture once more their delights. The second cheers will be from those who enjoy historical mysteries; in Happy Hooligan we need not worry about anachronisms or other inaccuracies---author Stuart Palmer was writing it as he saw it! The third set of cheers will be from mystery readers in the broader audience who are looking for a fun change of pace from current-day mysteries that tend to be more downbeat and gritty.
One note of caution: the book IS true to its era, and the terminology used to refer to people of color is certainly offensive to modern readers. Palmer was describing his time accurately, though, and, in his mild defense, a careful reader will note the most offensive language is used by the most offensive characters. On a more upbeat note, though, one of the elements I enjoyed a lot were frequent references to works of literature that most people knew, at least from school, in1941 and that I suspect have slipped from the curriculum and from readers’ acquaintance, like the poetry of Robert Herrick.
Present-day Hollywood society is not known for being staid and even-tempered, and things were no different in 1941. One of Miss Withers’ challenges is simply navigating the waters of the highly idiosyncratic film crew and the writers. These include a writing duo who stage a prank in the opening scene at a cocktail party in which they set some paper on fire under the lounge chair in which a drunken guest is sitting and put it out by squirting it with soda water siphons. If this is too outrageous for you, you might not enjoy this book, but if you cracked a smile, or even said, “Oh, my gosh!”, hang on. Nothing else is quite as egregious as this scene, but the characters and their goings on are, to say the least, colorful! The denouement, which I did not really see coming, was fair and reasonable, though.
So, staid spinster schoolteacher conquers Los Angeles. I can’t wait to see what American Mystery Classics serves up next!
A nice period piece!
My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an advance review copy of this book.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Breezy, but dated and lacking credibility. Strives for Hollywood screwball comedy feel but falls short. Was probably more appealing 80 years ago when it was written.

[David Dunlap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since she is regarded as an expert on the subject of murder, Miss Hildegarde Withers -- retired schoolteacher -- is hired by Mammoth Studios in Hollywood to serve as a consultant on their upcoming feature film about Lizzie Borden. Her first day on the job, one of a writing team known for their practical jokes is found dead in his office. The studio doctor and security officer conclude it was an accident -- with no ligature marks or bruises on the body, they insist, Saul Stafford must have broken his neck in a fall. Miss Withers is not convinced, but she is hard-pressed to explain the evidence (or lack thereof). Her efforts at investigating are not entirely appreciated by her studio bosses (who fear adverse publicity above all). In no time, the body count begins to rise, and Miss Withers calls for her friend Oliver Piper (of the NYPD) for assistance. -- I enjoyed this book. It is light and entertaining. The heroine is an appealing figure. I understand this is one book in a series of fourteen featuring the spinster schoolteacher; I would happily read another!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t realize until I started reading that this is a reprint of a story by Stuart Palmer originally published in 1941; and part of a new series of assorted classic mysteries.
The protagonist of this and 13 other books is Hildegarde Withers, a NYC school teacher and amateur detective. She has been hired to be a technical consultant in Hollywood for a movie about Lizzie Borden! Withers works, again, with Inspector Oscar Piper of the NYPD to solve a string of murders related to the production company. The story feels dated, but that is part of its appeal, along with its brevity :) I can easily imagine its genre being the inspiration for any number of 50’s and 60’s TV police and detective shows. I look forward to reading more books in this series.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old school Agatha Christie style detective novel written circa 1941 by Stuart Palmer (1905-1968). Written with a trace of humor, when school teacher Hildegarde Withers uncovers something sinister at work in movie capital Hollywood, she teams up with a detective friend to try and catch a wily killer. Not the fast paced detective novel genre witten today, but still about as fast as a spinster slueth can be expected to move. A relaxing and enjoyable read perfect for that long airplane ride.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

"On the gooood ship Lollypop!" [Whack!] "It's a sweeeet trip to a candy shop!" [Whack!]

Relax. Miss Hildegarde Withers (spinster teacher and amateur crime solver) hasn't gone crazy. She's just gone Hollywood. Is there a difference?

Hildy's hard-living creator started his professional life with a New York City ad agency. His first mystery ("The Penguin Pool Murder") had the unflappable NYC schoolmarm leading her class on a field trip. When a murder occurs, Miss Withers is determined to help Inspector Oscar Piper of the NYPD solve it. Readers loved the middle-aged sparring partners and Palmer's off-beat plots. A popular series of movies followed and Mr Palmer became an LA script writer/mystery author.

Movie making is a wild business and Palmer couldn't waste all that lovely material, so Miss Withers takes a vacation to Hollywood. A studio hires her as a consultant to the latest film about the Lizzie Borden murder case and the educator falls in with a turbulent bunch of producers, writers, technical people, and even a few actors. One of them confides that someone is trying to kill him. Then someone DOES kill him. The studio wants to call it an accident, but Miss Withers knows a murder when she sees one.

The "accidents" keep happening and one of them sends the gallant Hildegarde over a cliff and to the city morgue. Her friend Inspector Oscar Piper knows she's been on a case and he charges out to the West Coast to avenge her. Oscar frequently feels like murdering Miss Withers himself, but he's damned if anyone else will get away with it!

Plus, he suspects the same person committed a very clever murder in New York City and escaped punishment. He wants to figure out how the murder was pulled off, avenging his friend's death and closing a cold case at the same time.

This isn't my favorite in the series. Miss Withers is game, but Tinsel Town isn't really her element. However, Palmer loved California and he was a shrewd observer of the inanities of the film industry. Over-the-top as it is, both story and characters ring true. Can you devote your life to recreating Alice's Adventures without going down the Rabbit Hole yourself? Probably not.

Producer Nincom and his zany staff (popularly known as "Nincom and his Poops") are far more entertaining than any movie they're likely to create. If only one of them wasn't a cold-blooded murderer. The story ends with the survivors happily moving on, caught up in the glow of what will surely be the most inspired bit of casting in Hollywood history. Lizzie Borden tap-dancing! Can it get any better than that?

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I was excited to meet these characters as I had Stuart Palmer on my list of mystery authors to read and his main character, Hildegarde Withers (what a name!) as an upright and proper school teacher from New England with a flair for detection sounded like the Mary Poppins of amateur mystery. (Bonus: she uses her umbrella as her self-defense weapon of choice!) She has an ongoing tension, possibly romantic, with the beleaguered Inspector Oscar Piper, a "wiry, grizzled little Irishman" and part of NYC's finest boys in blue (reminiscent of a devoted chimneysweep anyone?!).
But my imagination gave more credit to these character's potential than Palmer does in the novel, much to my disappointment. Their personalities are as paper thin and generic as the silhouette bullseyes that the police use for target practice. So too of all the murder victims and suspects in this case. The setting and scenery is as pastiche as a tawdry Hollywood set backdrop, recycled from one film to another, and about as tired and cliché.
We meet the cast of writers and Hollywood execs and support staff in rapid succession, like a clown car careening into and unloading in the center ring of the circus, and the characters are about as interchangeable, with little distinction to separate them, let alone backstory, motives, or temperament to make any a clear frontrunner as a suspect. The murders too keep piling up one after another after another with little rhyme or reason, let alone connection. You barely get introduced to a character and they are promptly discarded. There's no sense of plot here! One event keeps happening after another after another, but you need a plot to connect them rather than just a sequence or timeline! You can't just use another chapter title in lieu of a transition, which, speaking of the chapter titles, all allude to morbid quotes from poetry that while masterpieces in their own right have little if nothing to do with the subjects, people, or events of each chapter.
Was not impressed with Mr. Palmer's characters, which is a shame given how much fun they could have been if only they had a bit more personality and the mystery had more meat and muscle to it, rather than being as devoid and clumsily strung together as the skeleton pictured on the cover.

[Gregg Narber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know Stuart Palmer or his protagonist, Hildegard Withers, before reading this, another in the new series of American Mystery Classics edited by Otto Penzler. Withers is not unlike Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, who I don't much care for, so I approached this with no lack of wariness. Withers is a middle-aged, unmarried New York City teacher with a nose for detection, who apparently helps NYC homicide detectives with cases that have them baffled (and solves them, of course). In spite of this mountain of tropes, this is a delightful read at the center of which is a well-crafted locked room mystery. As a crime expert, Withers is invited to be a technical consultant on a Hollywood film about the murder (or not) of her parents by Lizzie Borden. Naturally, the man in the studio office next to hers drops dead her first day of work. All involved see it as an unfortunate accident but Withers sees it as possible murder. Of course, she is right and other murders ensue before she concludes how it was done and by whom. Character development is minimal but I have to say the writing is simply excellent. Really a joy to read. That said, this was written before World War II, and political correctness is not manifest. Without getting too much into it, for example, a Black character (a servant of a Hollywood mogul) is referred to as "Uncle Remus" and "Eight Ball" and there is more. There is not that much of this sort of thing really and arguably that was the times, but it is still cringeworthy and surprising when you run into it. At least one women is an obvious cliche (gold digger), others are gossips, etc. All that said, I really enjoyed this mystery and will look into reading others by Stuart Palmer, a really good writer.

[Erik Tolvstad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

A twist on the locked room mystery, in that the method of murder seems to be improbable, if not impossible.

It's also something of a spoof of the movie industry of the early '40s. Stuart Palmer, the author of this tale also worked as a screenwriter, so there's reality working through the send-ups. Some artful name-dropping in some scenes. He even works in a couple of apropos references to the actress Edna Mae Oliver (who played Miss Withers in a couple of movies)

The mystery itself has some dandy twists that are hinted at from the beginning but aren't unraveled till the very end, in satisfactory fashion.

One of the best entries in a great series IMO.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so glad to have discovered this series via a paperback I purchased at a local vintage market! Grateful that this book was chosen for reprint by American Mystery Classics. I started to question why these books weren’t made into movies but looked it up instead. They were! Not sure how many are available on YouTube or another service now, but that might be easier than tracking down the books. I feel like that latter pursuit may end as did the one for Margaret Erskine’s Inspector Septimus Finch books—many years later, I still can’t find many of those books

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

. . . a fast-paced and very entertaining mystery set in "old Hollywood." This book, written in 1941, has period charm and innocence, but also offers the reader a glimpse into movie studio life in Southern California.

Hildegard Withers, the protagonist, is a "hatchet-faced" school teacher who enjoys dabbling in crime. She is definitely not a sleuth for hard-boiled mystery fans, but for those of us who like their mysteries light, she is smart, intuitive, and fun to follow.

[Swathi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is funny. The characters feel real, but certain things were unbelievable. Its fiction so its fine.

In my imagination, Hildergarde Withers is a cross between Miss Marple and Mrs Jeffries. She loves to collect gossip and take the first step in solving a mystery.

The murderer part was a surprise and how he/she did it seemed unreal. But still a very good read for fans of golden age of detective fiction.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Good Mystery...

I actually enjoyed the story, but I don’t think I can get past the racist references. A bathroom attendant is referred to as a “big black mammy” in this one. In the previous tale we were served “darkie” and supposed “darkie” vernacular. I realize that this practice was acceptable to a large majority of society during the time these books were written, but it simply made my stomach turn. I think the mysteries are great, but no thank you to the racism.

[Denise Kearney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Book-$1.99-Early Bird Books. 31/2 stars Miss Withers solves a mystery in Hollywood where there are plenty of interesting characters and an intricate plot to keep the reader guessing " who done it"

[James Farner · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Stuart Palmer mystery I've read. It's dated in plenty of ways, but if you take it for what it is and are willing to accept it on its terms—essentially a cozy mystery clearly written in the 1940s—it's perfectly enjoyable.

[Heatherinblack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love her

And so does Oscar. I am not spoiling anything (as there are many more books) in saying she obviously doesn’t die. But how she “disappears” is seriously funny to me. Good murder. People are greedy.

[TC · Rating 2 out of 5]

The mystery itself is decent and the two main detective characters are good, but be aware that this is from the 1940s and contains inappropriately racist terms/attitudes, as well as misogyny and sizeism.

[Jim Woehrle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun mystery set in old Hollywood. High school English teacher goes to Tinseltown for a sabbatical and matches wits with a murderer.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun romp through the Hollywood of the 1940's. Hildegarde Withers is great. I'd like to read another one of her books.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 STARS

[Deb Mervold · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is part of the otto Penzler presents American mystery classics series it was a quick entertaining read

[Star Merrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A happy whodunit, alto' I guessed who the bad guy was early on. Still, amusing, and the references to the old-time movie stars, etc. were a hoot.

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle of the road 🛣️. Ok, not great. I'll try another author in this series.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle of the road. Ok. Not great

[Dogsandbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Golden age, quite funny, Hildegarde Winters

[D. Wickles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm enjoying these Hildegarde Withers mysteries. I like the characters, the settings and the fact she's a female sleuth who the men underestimate. :)

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 *’s
The mystery was pretty good; some of the terms used do not hold up at all and take you right out of the story…