I know some readers need quite a bit of space after reading a book by one author, before returning to that writer’s work. Others are the opposite and can happily binge read a series in a month. I suspect I am somewhere in the middle, probably leaning more towards the latter camp. This is why I have returned to a few authors in the last month, whom I already read earlier in the year. Lange Lewis is the latest such writer I have gone back to for more in 2024, having read Meat for Murder (1943) in February.
The Saturday Review of Literature, when reviewing Juliet Dies Twice, gave this mystery a ‘loud applause’ and mentioned that the story ‘gallops through tense situations […]’. Moreover, Anthony Boucher writing for The San Francisco Chronicle opined that this book ‘For U. S. C. alumni’ was ‘a grand roman a clef, for others that rarest of mysteries – a really good novel with a university setting.’
Synopsis
‘On the morning of the opening of a drama student production of “Romeo and Juliet” on the campus of Southwest University in Los Angeles, the popular lead actress is found dead in the prop room. With help from a psychology professor and an eager student, homicide detective Richard Tuck investigates.’
Overall Thoughts
You get two settings for the price of one with this mystery. The first and primary one is a university campus (a setting which Lewis returns to in Murder Among Friends (1942)) and the second is a theatre group within the university and it is here that we find our victim and crime scene.
Irrespective of this, the story starts with Eudora and Millicent arriving at an asylum in a rural area. They are university students taking an abnormal psychology class. At the asylum they join other students from their course and their teacher, Professor Brewer. Brewer sets them loose exploring the grounds and interacting with the patients. He rather irresponsibly says to them: “Don’t be afraid of hurting the inmates’ feelings. You can’t. Ask all the questions you want […]” This is dehumanising to the say the least and it doesn’t reflect well on 1940s mental health care. However, through the character of Eudora we do get a slightly more nuanced outlook: “The main difference between sanity and insanity is simply degree. Lunatics often show the same peculiarities normal people do, only more so.”
This scene doesn’t see the students doing any questioning and instead I think the purpose of this opening is twofold. Firstly, it is used to introduce to the reader certain characters not present and some of these characters are then utilised by Eudora when she expands further on the comment I quoted above:
“Why, I can think of several people with mild delusions of grandeur. Take your pal Ann Laird. She knows she’s good. It’s not a logical conviction. She just knows. And when she gets on stage, that knowledge helps her to turn out a swell performance […] Anne’s delusion doesn’t lead her into antisocial actions, so she’s sweating in Touchstone Theater today, and not up here.”
The second aim of this scene is to sow the seeds for other plot developments later in the book. But for obvious reasons I won’t go into those.
Psychology as a subject also works its way into the discovery of the murder victim. Eudora and Millicent are participants in a class association test. They have to follow the instructions inside their envelopes. Eudora’s take her to the prop room in the theatre and it is there that she sees Anna on the floor. There is a second message left there saying that Eudora is the killer. Eudora thinks this is all part of the test and when she and Millicent return, this prediction seems to be vindicated. The other students in their class, based on the association test Millicent and Eudora then subsequently do, have to determine which of the two had seen a body. Yet Brewer is surprised when Eudora mentions at the end of the class that the corpse she saw was a woman. After all, Brewer had asked a male student to take on the role… So what has been going on?
I like how Eudora gets more page time and is more involved with the case than Professor Brewer, as sometimes in such mysteries the male characters can take dominate. Instead, Brewer has quite a minimal role in the case. I was surprised that in this type of mystery motives for murder are not overly or immediately apparent. Yet I didn’t feel the case significantly lost energy until 60% of the way through. At that stage the lack of progress in the case was more palpable.
However, perhaps the least satisfying part of the book was the solution. It requires proof given by an 11th hour witness (a trope that irritates me) and I felt like we were kept at arm’s length from the killer. The delivery of the solution didn’t really sparkle either as it is simply Eudora reading the reports written by Tuck.
The following section written in ROT 13 code discusses the final events of the book and therefore may be a spoiler for those new to the novel:
Gur qrabhrzrag vf hafrggyvat naq abg va n tbbq jnl. Gurer vf fbzr nzovthvgl bire vffhrf bs oynzr naq whqtrzrag. Nethnoyl gurer vf n fyvtug abq gb ivpgvz oynzvat sebz Yvrhgranag Ghpx, jub qvfcynlf na harkcrpgrqyl anfgl fvqr gb uvf punenpgre jura ur erirnyf:
“V jnf zneevrq bapr, sbe svir lrnef. V ybbxrq ng zl jvsr npebff gur oernxsnfg gnoyr bar zbeavat naq tbg hc naq jrag bhg naq arire pnzr onpx.”
Guvf qbrfa’g ernyyl svg Ghpx’f crefbanyvgl nf qrcvpgrq va guvf fgbel naq gur bguref gung ur srngherf va. Vg yrnirf na hacyrnfnag gnfgr va gur ernqre’f zbhgu, rfcrpvnyyl jura gur svany cnentencu bs gur obbx, pbzvat fgenvtug nsgre Ghpx’f nqzvffvba, vapyhqrf Rhqben’f jrqqvat ibjf. Gur cynprzrag bs gurfr gjb vgrzf va gur aneengvir whfg cebqhprq n perrcl rssrpg sbe zr. Yrjvf vf na bqq jevgre va gung fur perngrf vaqrcraqrag naq npgvir srznyr cebgntbavfgf, (gur orfg srnghevat va Gur Oveguqnl Zheqre), ohg gura ng gur raq bs fbzr bs gurfr zlfgrevrf, fur frrzf gb srry gur arrq gb ernffreg fgrerbglcvpny cngevnepuny nggvghqrf, juvpu qba’g zrfu jvgu gur erfg bs gur cybg. Vg cebqhprf n wneevat rssrpg.
Rating: 4/5 (I think it is the lack of cluing in the solution and the way it is delivered that left this as my weakest Lewis read.)
See also: Bev at My Reader’s Block and Brad at Ah Sweet Mystery Blog have also reviewed this title.
crossexaminingcrime 