About 2 AM by Charles Francis Coe had all the signs I like in a mystery - a great Art Deco cover wrapping a fine hardcover book, a new detective, written in 1931 - but "Gee whillikens!" this was a boring read! Uninteresting characters trapped for a few days while nothing happens, except murder. Sometimes that's not enough. Disappointing.
In his first novel, Coe introduces amateur detective Lemuel Tobias Bekins ("a most incomprehensible man") briefly described as a Secret Service investigator. He and his friend Bart steal away for a duck hunting trip, which began as a ten hour drive into the hills. Destination: Hopper's Cabins, a vacation camp Bart had visited before. Along the way the driving rain began, turning into a snowstorm, delaying them many hours. Arriving at Hopper's in the early morning, they discover one of the guests crumpled on the steps to his cabin. What is thought an accidental fall turns into murder as they discover his knife slashed neck! Over the next few days, everyone including the staff and several vacationing couples are stranded without telephone, cut off in the snowstorm, discovering how each knew the victim and had reason to kill him, including his wife.
If this sounds interesting, I'll warn you that Bekins has a verbal tick, where he begins every sentence with "Gee whillikens!", "By Jasper", "Gracious sakes alive!", or a combination of all three, sometimes within one paragraph. I started to count the times he blurted "Gee whillikens!", but it's easier to count the times he didn't. Some pages two or three times.
"By Jasper" it was annoying.
Also, being 1931 there was no problem having a handyman named Sambo, a 'Stepin' Fetchit' type often described as an eye-rolling "terrified negro", whose accent reads like "Mistah Hopper, he done tol' me's to keeps an eyes out fo' y'all."
'Stepin' Fetchit' (Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry) was the most popular and highest paid black character actor of the time, and his dim-witted negro was an acceptable representation/parody, but "Gee whillikens" some people will find Sambo's character demeaning.
The main problem with this mystery is: nothing happens. They discover the body and theories abound. The next day they all gather while Bekins enacts a plan of detection, "deducting the problematical from it and realizing who the murderer is." Stories are spilled, but you can see clearly from the first discovery who did it, and you'd be right, so there goes the fun. If you like sitting around snowbound cottages doing nothing, you might like to join these characters. "Gracious sakes alive", it doesn't get any more exciting when Sheriff Crocker finally arrives. "By Jasper" that's the truth.
Another obscure mystery I could find no information about online.
1931 / Hardcover / 307 pages
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