PAULINE GRAY INVESTIGATES: A PAULINE GRAY MYSTERIES OMNIBUS

The Golden Age of detective fiction was in the 1930s and 1940s, with mystery writers like Eric Ambler, A.A. Fair and Ngaio Marsh attracting legions of fans. More recently, inspired by an Agatha Christie story, Maine author Louise Bates cleverly recreates excellent detective mysteries of that bygone era with her new book, “Pauline Gray Investigates.”

Bates is already a successful writer of fantasy and science fiction, but this departure is new and fertile ground for her writing talents. And she pulls it off nicely. This book is really three novellas, each about 100 pages, all featuring Bates’s signature sleuth Pauline Gray of Canton, NY, in 1933.

Like that early detective fiction, these stories are cerebral mysteries, loaded with colorful characters, suspense and clues, skipping gratuitous bloodshed and violence. Pauline Gray is a 28-year-old, unmarried woman (a spinster, some folks say) working as a journalist for the small-town newspaper. Kindhearted and curious, she’s a sucker for a compelling puzzle and that is just what Bates serves up.

In “Candle in the Dark,” Pauline’s friend Ruby asks her to find out who is sending her anonymous letters claiming Ruby’s husband did not die in a workplace accident three years earlier, but that he was murdered. Pauline’s investigation touches on a police cold case, a surprise murder and a killer very close.

“Diamonds to Dust” is a delightfully intricate case involving 12 strangers receiving an unexpected inheritance from a wealthy man they never met. When one inheritor asks Pauline to find out why, inheritors start dropping dead, and she uncovers a complex plot of murder and fraud.

Finally, in “Secrets of the Past” a retired schoolteacher’s autobiography stirs up long dormant fear and anger resulting in murder, and Pauline is right in the middle of a tragic mess.

CONVERSATIONS: RANGER TALES FROM MAINE

Over the years Maine readers have enjoyed books by game wardens, law enforcement officers, and all manner of outdoors men and women. Now Buzz and Tim Caverly add to their own series of park ranger stories with
this 12th volume in their “Allagash Tails Collection.”

“Conversations” continues the brothers’ entertaining memoirs of careers as park rangers: Buzz (the older) as a ranger and director of Baxter State Park, and Tim as a ranger in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Now retired, their combined ranger experience totals nearly 80 years and they’ve got the stories to prove it.

The book contains 30 stories and a few poems, offering tales both hilarious and poignant, exciting and tender, even a few zingers about meddling politicians. This is great fun and easy reading. There are stories about wildlife, weather, ranger duties, problems, mishaps, and some very colorful characters they’ve met in the wilderness.

“How Smart Are Beavers” answers that question, that is, if anyone actually believes this very funny story. “Muskrat Love” isn’t just an old song title, it’s a tale about rodent romance. In “Winter Walk,” Tim tells of unexpectedly meeting a newlywed couple on a snowshoe honeymoon in a bitterly cold Allagash February.

Other stories tell of rescuing a lost hunter in the winter, the early days of “whoop and holler communications” (hand-crank telephones and touchy two-way radios), a tense chainsaw confrontation with a renegade guide, hunting accidents and lost children, as well as Tim’s interesting conversation with an unsuspecting poacher.

Best and funniest is “Allagash Medicine,” where old Henry offers Tim an unusual medicinal cocktail (vodka seasoned with a beaver’s dried scent gland), and tells the same fishing story over and over. Learn, too, about the new meaning of the term “baited breath.”

Bill Bushnell lives and writes in Harpswell.

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