Dagger of the Mind (Cry Killer !)

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Dagger of the Mind

by
Kenneth Fearing

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Dagger of the Mind
Author:	Kenneth Fearing
Genre:	Novel
Written:	1941
Length:	160 pages
Availability:	Dagger of the Mind - US
	Dagger of the Mind - UK
	Dagger of the Mind - Canada

Also (re)published as Cry Killer !

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Our Assessment:

B : quite good fun

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
The NY Times Book Rev.	.	2/2/1941	Isaac Anderson

From the Reviews:

"(H)ere are gathered some of the most eccentric and unconventional characters that can possibly be imagined. (...) Taken as a whole, this book is not so much a mystery story as a study in abnormal psychology -- an absorbing one at that -- although the mystery element is by no means negligible." - Isaac Anderson, The New York Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

Kenneth Fearing's 1941 novel takes it's title from Macbeth:

... art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ?

       The paperback edition I have helpfully has the whole quotation on the title page (though unattributed), but maybe it was still too fancy (or cerebral); the novel was later reprinted under the title Cry Killer ! -- making it more obvious, also, that readers could look forward to murder.
       The setting of the novel is fancy art colony Demarest Hall, a MacDowell-like artists' residency in (fictional) Demarest County, near the city of Endor. This "public institution that takes care of geniuses" is (tightly) overseen by director P.C.Cooke, who is so watchful that legend has it that: "very little took place in Demarest Hall without his knowing nearly everything there was to know about it. Clairvoyant, they called him".
       The novels sixteen chapters are narrated by a variety of those involved in the story, with: "the famous illustrator, portrait painter and muralist, Mr. Christopher Bartel" getting to have his say most often.
       After he socks fellow resident Walter Nichols for making a remark he doesn't care for, hard-drinking Bartel casually suggests that: "Someone ought to kill that guy" -- but in the second chapter, narrated by Nichols, it is Nichols who has murder on his mind -- and a plan, of sorts, to carry it out.
       And so, while Nichols admits:

I do not know what day or night, nor by what means precisely, the murder will be committed. But it cannot be long. And I only hope a method can be devised that is mercifully swift. The accomplice and dupe is all but ready-made. Perhaps he may even be induced to contribute one or two practical suggestions towards his own undoing.

So murder is in the air -- and, as Nichols notes, there are any number of "deserving victims, glaring motives, and likely suspects".
The cast of characters is colorful, artist-types who have had varying -- often great -- success, but also various issues. There's quite a bit of sexual (and other) tension in the air, too, not least regarding Nichols' wife, Lucille; their marriage already frayed, Lucille observes that: "I don't think Walter would stop at anything to get rid of me" -- indeed: "I mean, I don't think he'd stop at murdering me". And, as one of the guests asks Bartel:

     "Speaking of Nichols," he said. "When do you plan to lay his wife?"
     "I beg your pardon ?"
     He gestured tolerantly.
     "It's none of my business, of course. But everyone does. It's a tradition at the Hall." He exhaled, sampled the drink again. "I might say, one of the best traditions."

There are a variety of skeletons in various closets, too -- not least regarding P.C.Cooke, ones which Nichols is aware of. For one, there's that actual skeleton in the cellar ..... And there's also the fact that Nichols knows that Cooke had: "put in four years at Rockland State Hospital for the mentally deficient" .....
Naturally, there's a murder, and a Captain Wessex comes to investigate. The victim left a finger-pointing note -- but can it be believed ? And while Wessex soon thinks he knows who did it, that's not enough:

I have no evidence against him, either direct or circumstantial. The whole murder was carried out in the smartest way possible, with no witnesses, and no substantial clues left, nothing that would stand up in a court of law. We have nothing to go on that would definitely convict.

       What to do ? Well, Wessex understands that: "my only problem is to get the co-operation, in solving the case, of the person who did it". So that's what he sets out to do.
       The murder-mystery is a decent little puzzler, but Fearing is more interested in the characters and their interplay in any case, the murders (yes, there's more) allowing for a nice dark amplification of the weirdness of the place and people.
       There's a lot of late-night activity, a fair amount of drinking -- especially, but not only, on Bartel's part --, and many damaged souls navigating each other -- all quite entertaining. Fearing forces it all into a murder-mystery-composition, and the fit isn't ideal, but it works on that level as well -- even if the actual murder-scenario falls back on at least one overused explanation (though it is quite creative in other respects).
       Dagger of the Mind is a decent murder mystery, and an amusing arts-colony novel, if not a complete success all tied together.

- M.A.Orthofer, 14 September 2024

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Links:

Reviews:

Other books by Kenneth Fearing under review:

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Contemporary American fiction
See Index of Books Written Between 1900 and 1945

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About the Author:

American author Kenneth Fearing lived 1902 to 1961.

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