tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111891892009-04-24T18:59:06.994-05:00For the aficionado of historical mystery literature & the student of real-life mysteries & intriguesDaniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-46260414779933797772009-04-12T21:03:00.003-05:002009-04-24T18:59:07.003-05:00

The History Channel, the Discovery Channel and other cable networks (as well as mainstream networks with their "special features") love to attack us Christians at Christmas and Easter seasons with their "documentaries" that challenge the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was merely an "historical character"—although admittedly a very interesting one—they hypothesize.From their

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-22558690685169788112007-01-22T08:54:00.000-05:002007-01-22T09:20:15.659-05:00

Alston Purvis has achieved a remarkable thing: write a son’s perspective of a “hero” father with neither biased glorification nor unveiled animosity. The Vendetta: FBI Hero Melvin Purvis’s War Against Crime, and J. Edgar Hoover’s War Against Him (PublicAffairs, 2005) is a deeply personal documentary, reflection, exposé and quest for answers. When he set about the five-year task of assembling The

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-90082606567494087982007-01-04T21:05:00.000-05:002007-01-04T21:19:53.706-05:00

Every American knows the essential details of the Lincoln assassination: shot in the back of the head by actor John Wilkes Booth while attending a play in Washington, DC. It occurred on 14 April 1865, at the very end of the Civil War.But do you know how Booth met his own death?Booth, a Maryland-born Shakespearean and southern sympathizer, broke a leg when he leaped from the Lincolns’ box onto the

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1166217844364042932006-12-15T16:18:00.000-05:002006-12-15T16:24:04.633-05:00

Which Bureau of Investigation agent was on the scene when Pretty Boy Floyd was slain by law enforcement officers in an Ohio farm field in October 1934?a) Ray Caffrey, b) Sam Cowley, c) Melvin Purvis, d) J. Edgar Hoover

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1156286072132746332006-08-22T17:18:00.000-05:002006-08-22T17:37:40.246-05:00

Have you noticed that in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Solitary Cyclist" . . . there was no solitary cyclist? Sherlock Holmes solved the mystery of the two Charlington bicyclists—the tutor Violet Smith and her disguised employer/admirer/protector Bob Carruthers—in a thrilling action finish. Since Miss Smith, as client and victim, was the central character of the tale, she's generally

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1140901374347835342006-02-25T16:00:00.000-05:002006-02-25T16:02:54.363-05:00

The term “I love my work!” is a delight to hear in modern times—when so many workers don’t. As a catchphrase, it turns up in varied contexts. For example, it was uttered by Porthos the Pirate in a particularly funny action scene in the 1992 film version of The Three Musketeers.One (all too) true-life figure who professed to love his work was Jack the Ripper. In a euphoric, taunting note to London

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1137623785728218932006-01-18T17:17:00.000-05:002006-01-18T17:41:12.756-05:00

I don't typically offer negative reviews, but after ordering up a small fortune in archival Sherlock Holmes audio recordings earlier this month (as belated Christmas gifts to myself), I have to report that the Dove Audio readings by Ben Kingsley, circa 1992, are not recommendable. I've been listening to Hardwick, Timson and countless old radio performers along with Kingsley. Kingsley's readings

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1137184685449903212006-01-13T15:33:00.000-05:002006-01-18T17:48:54.986-05:00

I discovered this week the wonderful cassette sets of Sherlock Holmes stories recorded by Edward Hardwick during the 1990s, as well as the more recent DVD sets read by David Timson. Inspired, I probed the Internet for other Holmes audio recordings. Two key—and free—resources are available for downloading period productions. Many of you have discovered one or both of them already, no doubt, but

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1136295666873511092006-01-03T08:37:00.000-05:002006-01-03T08:41:06.886-05:00

A favorite routine during our occasional weekends in the Gatlinburg, TN, vicinity is dinner at the Greenbrier Restaurant. Situated on a small mountain slope on an obscure, winding lane off Highway 321, it’s a woodsy, warm haven—especially in autumn and winter—and the cuisine (most notably trout and prime rib) is outstanding. Not until our latest visit in November did we hear that the restaurant

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1135004415899105682005-12-19T09:56:00.000-05:002005-12-19T10:00:15.913-05:00

Speaking of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' 1843 classic seasonal ghost story, the folks at askSam have posted a free, searchable e-book version of it, including illustrations. It's at www.asksam.com/ebooks/Dickens/Christmas_Carol.asp.

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1134179841727534212005-12-09T20:50:00.000-05:002005-12-09T20:57:21.740-05:00

A Christmas Carol not only is (possibly) Charles Dickens' most famous work of fiction but is, as you undoubtedly know, a ghost story. Unless you've dabbled more deeply into Dickens' legacy, you may not know he followed up during the course of his career with various other short stories and longer pieces returning to the Christmas ghost theme. Next week we will be posting one of them, "The Story

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1133526141218576432005-12-02T07:21:00.000-05:002005-12-09T21:00:43.816-05:00

What was young Sherlock Holmes first case?a) "The Musgrave Ritual," b) "The Gloria Scott," c) "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," d) "The Bravoes of Market-Drayton."

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1133441264967098542005-12-01T07:45:00.000-05:002005-12-01T07:47:44.993-05:00

Have you noticed that in the “Radiance” image of the moonscape (one of the desktop backgrounds available in Windows), along with the myriad pockmarks of various-sized meteor craters is the partial rim of what appears to be a vast, circular lunar mountain ridge? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that must have been formed by some ancient mega-meteor, and that a wallop from a

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1133195620156582552005-11-28T11:27:00.000-05:002005-11-28T11:33:40.186-05:00

Two short stories have been added to the "Vintage Short Mystery Classics" series this month. "The Dancing-Partner" is English author/playwright Jerome K. Jerome's horror tale of entertainment gone awry. "The New Pass" is the second of Amelia B. Edward's fine ghost yarns posted to the series ("The North Mail" was among the first selections)."Vintage Short Mystery Classics" are downloadable mystery

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1132694791387508112005-11-22T16:21:00.000-05:002005-11-22T16:26:31.410-05:00

Apologies for the interruption in these history/mystery notes, quiz questions, etc. We were long-weekending near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where a friend periodically lets us stay at his mountain lodgings.A developing tradition on this trip for us is “movie night.” Tim, our benefactor, keeps a good stock of old films on hand. Included are several classic horror black-and-whites. This time we settled

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1130800401194973182005-10-31T18:11:00.000-05:002005-10-31T18:13:21.213-05:00

Yes! We have our share of “haunts” here in upstate South Carolina. For our entries into the plethora of seasonal spookiness this day, might we submit our mysterious rocking chair at Limestone College in Gaffney, which rocks by itself? How about our vanishing woman in blue, observed at roadside by motorists near Blacksburg?I’ve had the pleasure of lodging on occasion at the Inn at Merridun in

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1130360098158771882005-10-26T15:46:00.000-05:002005-10-26T15:54:58.166-05:00

October additions to the "Vintage Short Mystery Classics" series of free e-book downloads include: "The Mystery of Essex Stairs" by Sir Gilbert Campbell, "Talma Gordon" by Pauline E. Hopkins, "The Sapient Monkey" by Headon Hill (Francis Edward Grainger), "Thrawn Janet" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "A Tale of the Great Plague" by Thomas Hood and "The Bravoes of Market-Drayton" by Sir Arthur Conan

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1129940528161115822005-10-21T19:15:00.000-05:002005-10-21T19:22:08.190-05:00

I—like many of you, I'm sure—collect quotable quotes. Especially interesting to me are those from the pens of mystery authors. A few examples:“Like fire or the sea, he was too simple to be trusted.”—G.K. Chesterton, in “The Paradise of Thieves”“No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theatre of war. . . .”—Ambrose Bierce, in “A Horseman in the Sky”“ ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said I

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1129330813538386552005-10-14T17:57:00.000-05:002005-10-14T18:00:13.550-05:00

An excellent online resource for modern-day investigators of the still-open 1892 Borden hatchet murder case is the project developed by the University of Massachusetts/Amherst’s History Department and Center for Computer-Based Instructional Technology. It’s at http://ccbit.cs.umass.edu/lizzie/intro/home.html. The site contains primary as well as secondary sources, including Edmund Pearson’s 1937

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1128041514452782552005-09-29T19:48:00.000-05:002005-09-30T19:54:54.763-05:00

We all know what the term “bull’s-eye” means in target practice—dead center (literally “dead” center, in the lingo of police officers who are training at the firing range to protect themselves and to stop capital criminals). It has other meanings, though. A new one, to me, occurs in Sir Gilbert Campbell’s “The Mystery of Essex Stairs,” an 1891 story we're currently typesetting and proofreading

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1127593412511046942005-09-24T15:12:00.000-05:002005-09-24T15:23:32.520-05:00

Six short stories have been added to the "Vintage Short Mystery Classics" series this month. To wit: "The Shed Chamber," Laura E. Richards' adventure of a juvenile farm sleuth; "The Ghost Ship," a fantastical spoof by Richard Middleton; "The Executioner," a heart-rending Napoleonic tale of the ultimate familial dilemma by Honoré de Balzac; "The Fenchurch Street Mystery," Baroness Orczy's

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1127511501420718282005-09-23T16:33:00.000-05:002005-09-23T16:38:36.600-05:00

The UFO (unidentified flying object) phenomenon generally is dated to 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold, flying a small plane over Washington State, observed nine saucer-shaped objects in the sky (seemingly) nearby. But Arnold wasn’t the first credible witness. A spate of strange “airship” sightings were reported by numerous Americans in 1896-97. Assuming these were extraterrestrial visitors,

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1126921870694515022005-09-16T20:45:00.000-05:002005-09-16T20:51:10.710-05:00

So often when I turn to a biography of Chesterton or an encyclopedic synopsis of his strange little sleuth Father Brown among the annals of detective fiction, I encounter adjectives like “inconspicuous,” “innocent,” “simple,” “nondescript,” “ordinary.” That ambience, so widely perceived concerning the ecclesiastical crime solver, has mystified me from the very first Father Brown story I ever read

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1126307922183151752005-09-09T18:12:00.000-05:002005-09-09T18:18:42.190-05:00

A mystery that long has intrigued me is the nature of “Shoeless Joe” Jackson’s involvement in the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” scandal. Did he or didn’t he accept money to help throw the World Series?Jackson, one of the all-time great hitters and fielders, was banned from professional baseball after he and seven White Sox teammates were accused of accepting bribes from organized crime, or of knowing

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11189189.post-1125664177183706562005-09-02T07:25:00.000-05:002005-09-02T07:29:37.196-05:00

Until a year before his death in 1921 at age 48, Enrico Caruso was a star of the stage. No other dramatic tenor was his equal during his lifetime, and he became a pioneering recording artist, making phonographs for the Victor company as early as 1903.While most Americans know him by his incredible performing voice, not so many know of his brush with the Sicilian-American extortion organization

Daniel Elton Harmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09918959370647034910noreply@blogger.com0