Dead Ernest

DEAD ERNEST begins when Leonidas gets ready for his temporary apppintment as head of a boy's school in a neighborhood that, while it looks serene and very proper on the outside, reeks of crime and nothing is what it seems! Jeff Marks' recent account of the lives of seven postwar female mystery writers made me seek out Alice Tilton's novels, and beginning with this one I plan to go and make a broad sweep of her oeuvre, because DEAD ERNEST is so funny I found myself trying to catch my breath with laughter. I can't even begin to list the complications Leonidas faces here, but most of them have to do with trying to track down the two squat, brawling movers who hauled an electric freezer into his front room--a freezer that contains a body--the body of the new teacher at the local prep school--name, Ernest Finger. Or is it? In another part of town, he is known not as a teacher but as a singer and a heartbreaker. Complicating matters for Leonidas (or BILL as he is called due to his uncanny resemblance to that one etching people have identified as Shakespeare) is the presence of a beautiful young woman, a blonde Rita Hayworth type in a slinky "Gilda" style dress, called Terry, who shows up with an unlikely explanation for her activities. Can she be trusted? In any case, her wisecracks and her slangy 40s drawl make her eminently fun company. She gives "Bill" as good as he gets. The banquet they attend is beautifully redolent of small town suburbia, right down to the menu, creamed chicken ("even if they added mushrooms and referred to it as Minturn Club chicken a la king') and orange sherbet for dessert. Also, "colossal stuffed olives (imported), selected hearts of celery, and "Crsip Lettuce with French Dressing Minturn Club." You might almost forget that a man lies dead in that freezer, or that a war's going on. Never has an author made murder so amusing. Not even Nick and Nora had the easy, sexy repartee of Bill and "Terry."

If you loved the 'screwball comedies' of the Golden Age of movies, and/or the cliff-hanger endings of the weekly serials from about that same era, you should truly appreciate the Leonidas Witherall books by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, written under the pen name of Alice Tilton. This particular story whizzes by so rapidly, you'll find yourself struggling to catch your breath from the hustle-bustle, while laughing uproariously at the same time. The truly amazing part of it (at least to me) is that there are 218 pages in this book, and all the action takes place in less than 24 hours! Amazing! Leonidas is a William Shakespeare look-alike, and indeed, is frequently known as 'Bill Shakespeare'. His business persona is that of proprietor/headmaster at Meredith Academy, a prestigious boys school in Dalton, Mass., a suburb of Boston. The time is in the early 40s while the war is still being waged in both the east and the west. When Leonidas is not engaged in school activities, he is the author of the famous Lieutenant Haseltine adventure novels, written as Murgatroyd Jones. What with his own adventures, plus researching those of the good lieutenant, it's probably safe to say that, apparently, he knows every policeman in the state of Massachusetts, and a good many other states, as well. When a huge deep-freeze is delivered to his home, Leonidas is determined that it is in error, and thus sets in motion the Harold Lloyd/Buster Keaton/Keystone Kops type non-stop action. As the freeze makes its way from house to house to school, he is visited by a lovely young blonde with violet eyes, the very personification of every man's birthday wish. Of course, it isn't his birthday, but the beautiful young lady in the gorgeous white gown and a corsage of violet-colored orchids is nonetheless positive she's at the right house.In the meantime, the next door neighbors are moving, and the new family seems rather intrusive. And then there's Ernest Finger, or is he really Carlos Santos, and why does it appear that he's on everyone's 'most hated' list? Leonidas and Terry (the blonde whose real name is Terpsichore!), his housekeeper Mrs. Mullet, and a cast of assorted folks as quirky and interesting as anyone could wish for, combine to make this one sensible, if breath-taking reading experience. I could barely stand to put it down, even though other duties beckoned. What fun! M'yes, indeed. If you've not previously made the acquaintance of Leonidas, I urge you to do so. The sooner the better!