Books
Death in the Dark

by Stacey Bishop
Locked Room Intl, February 2017, $24.99

Stacey Bishop was the pseudonym of George Antheil, an avant-garde composer known for his eccentric work, including the infamous Ballet Mécanique, which required a variety of mechanical engines for its performance. Death in the Dark, originally published in 1930, is an excellent Golden Age mystery set in the New York entertainment world that Antheil knew well.

Theatrical manager Dave Denny is killed at the beginning of the novel, in the first of three impossible crimes. Denny has been shot precisely in the center of his forehead in a pitch-black room during a party, with his wife, mother, and other acquaintances on the scene.

New York Public Prosecutor Howard Wayson is friends with the Denny family and also on the scene during the murder, but much like District Attorney Markham calling in Philo Vance in an S.S. Van Dine novel, he’s dismayingly incompetent, and so requests the help of his friend Stephan Bayard to sort out the confusion. In fact the parallels between this book and those of Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright) are striking. Bayard is a cultural intellectual who frequently comments on art and music, the action takes place largely in the Denny’s stylish New York apartment during the 1920s, and the book is narrated by Bayard’s companion and purported author, George Stacey Bishop, who is almost as invisible as was Van Dine in the 12 Philo Vance novels. Bayard, however, is in no way annoying, as Vance could sometimes be, and neatly unravels this brain buster of a case.

There are parallels between the real lives of Antheil and Wright as well. Wright solicited and published the work of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound in The Smart Set magazine, and Eliot and Pound helped Antheil write Death in the Dark! Antheil’s life and the story behind the book are almost as complex as the plot. Dr. Mauro Piccinini, an Antheil expert, provides details, including Antheil’s work with actress Hedy Lamarr to design the spread spectrum technology used in all cell phones today, in a lengthy afterword.

Brian Skupin
Teri Duerr
5642
Bishop
February 2017
death-in-the-dark
24.99
Locked Room Intl