S2E7 In Plain Sight

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery, murder, and mayhem. Some episodes will be my own stories, others will be classics that helped shape the mystery genre we know today. These are arrangements, which means instead of word-for-word readings, you get a performance meant to be heard. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes (unless it's really bad)This is Season 2. This season contains adaptations of stories published in the 1800s. These stories are some of the first considered to be mysteries. For that reason, this season is called The Originators.Today’s story is about greed, blindness and loyalty. This is the Episode 7 In Plain Sight, an adaptation of A Strange Disappearance by Anna Katherine Green.Tina: Anna Katherine Green’s second book in the Mr. Gryce series was published in 1880 and set in New York City. The version I read had the Blake mansion on corner property facing Second Avenue. The cross street was not specified. Google dropped the pin near East 65th Street, so we’re going with it. The Blake Mansion is a mere 6 ½ hours from the Royal Observatory in England with non-stop flights between JFK and Heathrow. You can get between Second Avenue and Senatobia, Mississippi, the location of our second episode, in about 5 hours flying to Memphis and taking the short drive south. Drive the entire way and it’s 17 hours. It takes about the same amount of time to get to Hannibal, Missouri, where Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer started out from. This story is set in winter. There isn’t any mention of holidays or the new year, which makes me think we are in February. New York gains an hour of daylight over the short month. Sun rise is between 7am and 6:30am. Sunset is between 5:15pm and 5:45pm.The original story, A Strange Disappearance, has 346 reviews and ratings on Good Reads with an average of 3.46. 45% rated it a 3, 30% a 4. Here are a few reviews. Five-star review: I REALLY, REALLY LIKE THIS AUTHOR!!! Yet another story that had me on the edge of my seat, turning the pages, and reveling in the twists and turns come up at the end! LOVED this book!! Well done Anna Green!!Excerpt from a three-star review: I was a little bit disappointed by this after enjoying The Leavenworth Case so much. A K Green is hailed as the Mother of Modern Crime Fiction but it didn't take me long to work out what was going on here. Added to this, I was disappointed to find that Police Inspector Ebenezer Gryce (the Sherlock Holmes of his time) hardly appeared, leaving the detective work to his assistant, Q. And the main female character was so wishy-washy, unassuming and saintly that I wanted to shake her - but I do appreciate that I was looking at her not with an 1880s glance but with 21st Century eyes.  Jack: Anna Katherine Green was an American novelist and, by many accounts, is the mother of mystery. Her first Mr. Gryce novel, the Leavenworth Case, published in 1878, was the first legal thriller and brought her the most fame. Over her 45 year career, she published over 36 novels and also wrote poetry. Michael Mallory profiled her in Mystery Scene magazine. A link to the article is in the show notes. Anna was born in Brooklyn, NY and was the daughter of a prominent lawyer. She graduated from Ripley Female College (now Green Mountain College) in Poultney, Vermont, in 1866. This was at a time when it was still rare for women to go to college. Anna learned something about law from her father and used it to create Mr. Gryce, her detective, and the cases he solved. Her books were cutting edge for their plots and their incorporation of realistic legal circumstances. A number of sources thought Anna’s work hasn’t had the lasting power of Poe and Collins (two other authors we featured this season) because she incorporated Victorian ideals that eventually made them feel dated.   Tina: We are nearly ready to begin our story. While Jack resets his microphone and warms up his fingers, I’ll explain why are we doing adaptations of these early stories instead of performing them as written. Two main reasons. The language from the 1800s is hard. The commas alone can have me reaching for a nice Moscato.Second, the style and length of the stories were not created for listening, they were created for reading. With these adaptations, we keep the heart of the story, preserving the ground breaking narrative, but update the packaging for easier digester. Character names are in the show notes. And so we are ready for In Plain Sight. Jack, that’s your cue. Episode MaterialsThere are several places where you can find the original. Gutenberg is one of them. ttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1167Reference linksAnna Katherine Green links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Katharine_Greenhttps://www.mysteryscenemag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1867https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anna-Katharine-Green New York Map 1883 https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:6938097  Cast of charactersPolice Inspector Ebenezer Gryce: Famed NYC police inspectorInspector Thomas Quinn: Junior inspector under Gryce, the brains and legs of this investigation, our storyteller  Lettie: Seamstress in Blake household, disappeared from bedroom in the middle of the nightHolman Blake: Former congressman, last in the line of rich and eccentric Blakes. Wasn’t on speaking terms with the girl but cooperates for her safe return Mr. Blake Senior: Holman’s eccentric father who changed will to require Holman to marrying anyone but Evelyn BlakeEvelyn Blake, Countess de Mirac: Cousin to Holman and the love interest he passed over to marry another and claim his inheritanceLuttra Schoenmaker Blake: Wife to Holman, left him on wedding day, 11 months ago, after hearing her husband say he only married her to claim his inheritanceMrs. Daniels: Housekeeper, brought Gryce and Quinn into case, desperate to find Lettie Fanny: maid in Blake household, witnessSenior & Karl Schoenmaker: Luttra’s bank robbing father and brother, recently escaped from prisonDoesn’t seem like they should all go together, do they?My two centsI liked this story a lot. The mystery was well crafted. Of course, I seem to always find little things to pick on. In the original story, the Schoenmaker’s break in was to Blake’s house to rob it, having no idea Luttra resided there or that it was her bedroom they went through. I didn’t like that mystery started with a coincidence, so I altered it that they saw Luttra out.The timetable after Luttra disappears is a little confusing as to how many days pass. The length of time it took to travel to Vermont, both by Quinn & Blake and Karl Schoenburg, seemed too much for the event sequence in New York. The only part relevant to the story was Quinn finding the ring, so it wasn’t worth trying to detail out the timeline.Speaking of the ring Quinn found in the stove, it was not fully explained. Originally, I thought it was Luttra’s wedding ring. They never say what happens to it after she left, so it seemed possible. During the “deal”, Gryce or Quinn say the ring could send the Schoenmakers to the gallows. That made me doubt it was Luttra’s ring. In the adaptation, I made it a less expensive ring than Blake would have given his wife and created a connection to the Schoenmaker’s escape which would earn them the gallows.For someone born and raised in NY and schooled in Vermont, I’m surprised there wasn’t more woven into the story about temperature or clothing or weather. It had to be cold while Blake and Quinn were running around the story.Finally, the ending lines with Quinn and Fanny, the reward, and the young drowned woman were my own additions. These were loose ends not tied up in the original. I supposed in the late 1800s, the better odds were that the woman’s death would not be solved. I wanted better than that for her. It’s called creative license.I’m putting Anna Green on my To Be Read list. I really like Gryce and look forward to his other mysteries. Maybe we’ll even feature her first book in a future episode. Who knows.After the StoryThat wraps this episode of Mysteries to Die For. Support our show by telling a mystery lover about us and giving us a five-star review. Sponsor this season. Join our Body Bag Brigade with your donation. Give what you can. Everything is appreciated. DONATE HERE Mysteries to Die For is written by TG Wolff with contribution from Jack Wolff and Shannon Leahy. Human Affect was an adaptation of The Haunted and the Haunters by Edward Lytton-Bulwer. Music and...