A.B.
Cunningham was an American teacher and professor, who taught
English for twenty years at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas,
before retiring in 1945 as a professor emeritus, but, as was not
entirely uncommon in those day, he had a secondary career as a
mystery novelist – which became a full-time occupation after he
retired from teaching. Cunningham wrote roughly twenty detective
novels about his series-detective, Sheriff Jess Roden, who serves the
people of rural Deer Lick, Kentucky. A county with as high a murder
rate as Cabot Cove up there in Maine.
Cunningham
was brought to my attention by The Anthony Boucher Chronicles:
Reviews and Commentary, 1942-47 (2009), which praises his rural
detective stories for its "memorable writing” and "fine
regional flavor." Boucher was reputedly quite a fan and called
him "an unclassifiable master."
So
all that praise caught my eye and, back in 2011, I got my hands on an
inexpensive paperback of Death
Haunts the Dark Lane (1948) and the slice of rural Americana
was definitely the most memorable aspect of the story, but, according
to my own review, the plot wasn't all that shabby either –
warranting a second look at the series. And, after nearly seven
years, a return trip to Deer Lick has been long overdue.
The
Strange Death of Manny Square (1941) is the third book in the
series and the opening chapters immediately gives the reader a taste
of Cunningham's famed regional flavor.
Cunningham
begins by looking back at some of the exciting events that had
stirred the people of Deer Lick in the past. Such as a "Great
Disappointment" when an end-of-the-world prophecy didn't pan
out or when Gus Luker had claimed that his grandmother had foretold
the assassination of President William McKinley, who had read it in "the webs of spiders," but none of them had generated as
much excitement or speculation as the murder of Manny Square. A
pillar and leader of the Deer Lick community.
Manny
had inherited his farm from his father, Emanuel, who had divided his
land and houses between his two sons and their mother. Wayne had been
Emanuel's favorite son and he was allowed to pick between two plots
of land, but, during "a two-year circus," he had run
through in his inheritance and even the bank could no longer finance
his lavish house parties – all the while his older brother had
doubled the value of his inheritance by turning it into a rolling,
fertile farmland. Their mothers, Old Lou, was a woman of the old
stock and was described as being of "the caliber that would keep
on loading and firing her rifle over the dead body of her son"
until "the last redskin lay twitching from her own rifle ball."
However, the strong-willed Old Lou had to admit defeat when Manny
married a comely, working-class girl, Lizzie Bogle, who Old Lou tried
to reinvent as Mrs. Beth Square. She was unsuccessful.
![]() |
Scene of the Crime |
So
this sets the stage for when the news reaches Sheriff Roden that
Manny had met with a fatal accident in his own stables. Apparently,
Manny had been killed by "a smashing kick" to the face by
his great white mule, Ligre, who some suspect had simply been biding
his time to strike out. Regardless of appearances, Sheriff Roden is
terribly suspicious of the situation and, quick and neatly, deduces
that Manny had been murdered, which he based on the location and
nature of the head wound that showed that not the toe, but the heel,
had struck first – demonstrating that the fatal blow had come from
above instead of below. And almost as quickly, he works out that the
murderer must have wired a mule-shoe to a sledgehammer and dropped it
on Manny's head from the overhead mow.
However, the how is only the first step in figuring out who-and why, for which there are more than enough candidates. Wayne is in dire need for money and Lizzie turns out to have a secret affair with one of her husband's hired hands, Fred Sutton, giving them all a rock-solid motive for murder. Then there was a petty, long-standing feud between Manny and his next-door neighbor, Brady Heard, who had refused to place a fence at the summit of his stone quarry and Manny had been too headstrong to do it himself – claiming that it was Heard's responsibility to take the precaution. Every now and then, an animal would fall into the quarry and the same would happen, a day or so later, to one of Heard's animals.
However, the how is only the first step in figuring out who-and why, for which there are more than enough candidates. Wayne is in dire need for money and Lizzie turns out to have a secret affair with one of her husband's hired hands, Fred Sutton, giving them all a rock-solid motive for murder. Then there was a petty, long-standing feud between Manny and his next-door neighbor, Brady Heard, who had refused to place a fence at the summit of his stone quarry and Manny had been too headstrong to do it himself – claiming that it was Heard's responsibility to take the precaution. Every now and then, an animal would fall into the quarry and the same would happen, a day or so later, to one of Heard's animals.
So
there you have nearly all of the components of a knotty, complicated
detective story, but, in spite of appearances, the observant reader
should be able to arrive at the same conclusion as Sheriff Roden
without too much difficulty. All of the evidence needed to answer who
killed Manny Square, and why, is hidden within the personalities and
behavior of the suspects.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6C0I84cOK_IAPPMDObmED_OHEX0HlRC67EVKN-yl_tx1k-n0-2ELWYlgI7AnmFEgfVZGQKch4IxOiXsoOAtAKu8Ne7LrhhyphenhyphenwXX72_9-CQ6BzZGCxgzjUr9yCwliUstfqZ3UBQA6WdTg/s400/The_Strange_Death_of_Manny_Square_ABC_2.jpg)
Unfortunately,
no matter how good the writing or plot may be, this specific title is
never getting reprinted in this day and age. There are three black
characters in the story and how they're being portrayed, or talked
about, ensures that no publisher today would dare touching it.
I
don't remember these attitudes were present in Death Haunts the
Dark Lane and John
Norris, who reviewed Cunningham's Death
at the Bottoms (1942) and The
Great Yant Mystery (1943), only referred to the presence of
Big Nig in one of them – a character who also appeared in this
book. So I assume Cunningham toned it down a bit after the first
three or four books, but I can easily imagine how these earlier titles
might have prevented his later work from getting reprinted after the 1960s. And that
would be a terrible shame, because I would like to read more by
Cunningham and in particular his two impossible crime novels.
Anyway...
On
a whole, The Strange Death of Manny Square is a well-written,
decently plotted detective novel, in which the characters (largely)
drive the plot, but the portrayal and treatment of the black
characters will most likely turn off some readers today. However, if
you can read this story within the time-frame it was written, you'll
probably be able to admire the positive aspects of this rural
detective novel.
On
a final note, I was planning to return to Christopher
Bush, but a particular locked room mystery arrived in the mail
today. So that one is going to be next on the list.
well timed review as I have just bought some Cunningham novels for my vintage mystery book box business, including The Death of a Worldly Woman, which I think is meant to be one of the locked room/impossible crime ones. It is a shame about his depiction of race but hopefully some of his others do not have this issue quite so strongly.
ReplyDeleteA well-timed coincidence, to be sure! Yes, The Death of a Worldly Woman is one of Cunningham's locked room novels. The other one's Who Killed Pretty Becky Low?, but remember reading somewhere that that title is a pretty rare one.
DeleteWill you be taking a stab at Cunningham yourself?
Not quite sure yet, I'll have to look at the blurbs for the 3 I have. Alas I do not have WKPBL.
DeleteRace issues come up so much in southern regional mysteries at that time.
ReplyDelete