A shabby raincoat . . . a perpetually lit cigar . . . a mastery at playing the fool! No detective was better at getting under his adversaries’ skin than Lieutenant Frank Columbo of the LAPD. As played by Peter Falk, Columbo appeared in sixty-nine episodes that ran on and (mostly) off between 1968 and 2003. Seriously, that amounts to one episode every twenty-sevenweeks!  Columbo is the favorite TV detective of many a viewer . . . but not me. I’m not a huge fan of inverted mysteries, and, well, frankly, Frank – the overly obsequious shtick that Falk perfected tended to tip into obnoxi ..read more

For the past six months, we’ve been looking at Perry Mason mysteries, specifically those with a title that conjures up matrimony – both its pros and cons. One of the highlights for me has been how the seven titles in this mini-series are spread throughout author Erle Stanley Gardner’s career. And now we have hit the Swinging Sixties, with the previous title (The Case of the Spurious Spinster) and today’s novel, both of them written in 1961.  The question arises: how well – or even how much – did Gardner keep up with the times? Even Agatha Christie imbued her 60’s novels with com ..read more

Let’s talk about novellas – specifically, the Nero Wolfe novellas by Rex Stout. In my admittedly limited range of knowledge and experience, no mystery author has better demonstrated that you can accomplish the same thing in 20,000 words that most writers take 80,000 or more words to do than Stout did.  Beginning with 1934’s Fer-de-Lance, Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, the best Watson ever, appeared in thirty-three novels and thirty-nine novellas. It was in the shorter form that I first discovered this pair, back when I was a mali dječak (that’s “little b ..read more

Fans of classic detective fiction know that there are thousands of books by hundreds of authors to choose from. They run the gamut from pure puzzlers to “Had I But Knowns”, from succinct procedurals to opulent thrillers. Their tones rank from despairing to hilarious, and you can pick your sleuths out of a panoply of cops, priests, doctors, lawyers, private dicks, tippling couples, snoopy old ladies and egg-shaped furriners. There’s something to suit anyone’s taste, and as a recent commenter on social media put it, so wisely and succinctly: “Competition isn’t necessary.”  Which might be wh ..read more

I haven’t subscribed to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine for years and years, mainly because the short mystery has undergone the same transformation as the modern novel: puzzles and problems have been replaced with anger and ennui. But the local library has a large, comfortable magazine room, and every two months, I pick up the newest copy of EQMM on the off chance that something in the Table of Contents will stir my imagination. Most likely, I will find this in the magazine’s “Passport to Crime” series, which features mysteries from around the world. Many is the time I have ..read more

In all fairness, “Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star” probably had no chance with me from the start.  This 1991 episode pits the Lieutenant against Hugh Creighton, “the world’s best defense attorney” (Dabney Coleman). Now, I happen to be intimately acquainted with the world’s best defense attorney: his name is Perry Mason, and, like Lieutenant Columbo, he lives and practices in L.A.. I can assure you that Mason bears no resemblance to Hugh, who shows no evidence of any legal prowess in or out of the courtroom.  Hugh has hired a private detective (who is no Paul Drake either, beli ..read more

Like many popular crime TV series, Columbo succeeded because of, rather than despite, its formulaic structure. Fans endured waits lasting anywhere from weeks to years between episodes for the chance to see Peter Falk wield his fake humility against the overweening ego of a colorful guest star, pop up at awkward and arguably humorous moments to rattle the killer, and slowly advance his case (sometimes verrrrry slowly during those 95-minute episodes), culminating in the inevitable “gotcha!” moment. Each of these elements constitutes a factor in the rating/ranking of a Columbo: how ..read more

This new project of watching all the female murderers and accomplices on Columbo is not making an expert out of this first-time viewer. My sense is that the men who kill here are far more cold-blooded, motivated by greed, envy and a lust for . . . well, anything. And, from the feedback I’ve been getting, the idea of the female of the species being more deadly is moot here: the male might be more entertaining, and when it comes to dueling with the detective, more purely . . . Columbo.  At this point, if I want to discuss a true female monster, I’d have to go all th ..read more

Our exploration into Distaff Columbo jumps to the second episode of 1976 and the first episode of the 1977 season. Both are a mere 75 minutes in length, both concern a murderess who is both sympathetic and ruthless – although one of them a character named Ruth and the other played by an actress named Ruth! – and both contain incredibly gullible victims. Neither episode wholly works, but one is much better than the other, largely due to a magnificent guest star turn.   “Old Fashioned Murder” features Joyce Van Patten as Ruth Lytton, the curator of a family-owned museum. A d ..read more

I don’t know the reasoning behind why some Columbo episodes were 75 minutes long and others ran to 95 minutes. “Any Old Port in the Storm,” the 2nd episode of the 3rd season, is a brilliant 75-minute-long case weighed down by twenty extra minutes.  The fabled Carsini Winery is run by elder son Adrian Carsini (Donald Pleasance), whose ability to recognize and create fine wine is unparalleled. His business plan is for the vineyard to create a very limited stock and concentrate on making these six wines the best of any in their field. For that, he has earned the acclaim o ..read more