Craig Rice

• Born: June 5, 1908
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: August 28, 1957
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Types of Plot: Hard-boiled; amateur sleuth; psychological; comedy caper; cozy

Principal Series: John J. Malone, 1939-1967; Melville Fairr, 1942-1944; Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak, 1943-1958

Contribution

In less than two decades, Craig Rice successfully overturned many of the time-honored traditions of the detective story in most of her twenty-eight books. (The number is an estimate because some may have been ghostwritten for her.) In a genre in which death can be a game of men walking down mean streets unafraid to meet their doom, she wrote of men whose fearlessness came from a bottle—from several bottles, in fact—and made it seem comical. At heart, the drinking in her books is the social drinking of Mr. and Mrs. North or Topper.

Rice’s blend of humor with homicide and mirth with mayhem works because her stories have a foundation in a realistic crime situation. Eventually the situation reaches a point at which readers must laugh or lose their minds. Crime, Rice insists, is not funny, but her characters are funny by contrast because of their reactions and because they closely resemble characters in the screwball comedies of the 1930’s. Eternally optimistic, they never take themselves any more seriously than is called for. Her style allies her more with Damon Runyon than with Dashiell Hammett. A unique and original writer, Rice has never been imitated successfully.

Biography

Georgiana Ann Randolph was born in Chicago on June 5, 1908, the daughter of Harry Moschiem “Bosco” Craig and Mary Randolph Craig. Her father was an itinerant artist, her mother the daughter of a Chicago physician. Accounts differ on her correct surname. Her most famous pen name combines her father’s last name and the last name of his brother-in-law and sister with whom she lived, Mr. and Mrs. Elton Rice.

Educated by her uncle and in a Jesuit missionary school, Rice developed a dislike of conformity and at the age of eighteen began earning a precarious living in the Chicago literary world. She succeeded because of her versatility; she took on jobs as a crime reporter, a radio and motion-picture script writer, and publicity manager for Gypsy Rose Lee and a group of traveling wrestlers, as well as working as a general freelance writer.

Rice was married at least four times, to Arthur John Follows, a newspaperman named Arthur Ferguson, H. W. DeMott, Jr., and a writer named Lawrence Lipton, not necessarily in that order. Her children, Nancy, Iris, and David, appear as characters in her semiautobiographical novel, Home Sweet Homicide (1944). The children spent much of their time in boarding schools while their mother wrote at home in Santa Monica, California. Her husband at the time, Lawrence Lipton, worked in an office in Los Angeles.

Rice’s first detective novel, Eight Faces at Three (1939), took her nearly two years to write. The first chapter was easy enough, but she had trouble getting beyond its intriguing problem. She claimed that she never understood how she did it, but the character of the hard-drinking, womanizing John J. Malone succeeded with the public and appeared in several subsequent novels.

Reportedly an expert marksman, cook, and grower of prize gardenias, Rice enjoyed life enormously. Nevertheless, in spite of fame and financial rewards (she was the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time), she found meeting deadlines increasingly difficult. The drinking that she made amusing in print was not amusing in her own life. On August 28, 1957, she died of an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol.

Analysis

Craig Rice used a number of pseudonyms in her career as a mystery writer. As Michael Venning or Daphne Sanders, she could produce certain types of stories unlike those the public came to associate with the name Craig Rice. Less light-hearted, these stories constitute serious character portrayals accompanied by psychological insight.

Even the titles she ghosted for Gypsy Rose Lee (The G-String Murders, 1941; Mother Finds a Body, 1942) and George Sanders (Crime on My Hands, 1944) were written to satisfy reader expectation of the public persona of those entertainers. In each instance, the author on the title page serves as the detective in the story as well.

With few exceptions (principally Telefair, 1942, also published as Yesterday’s Murder), the “Craig Rice” style is unmistakable, with its light and clean prose. There is an underlying seriousness (the situation is always a serious matter to her characters), but the story is told in a manner that reveals the comic side of life.

Rice claimed not to be aware of what she was doing in the detective novel or of how she was doing it. In two pieces on the craft of mystery writing (“It’s a Mystery to Me” and “Murder Makes Merry”), she contends that if she really did know what made her mystery novels funny or how to find the solution to an intriguing problem she would be wealthy. She appears to have followed the system of putting a clean sheet of paper in the typewriter and typing until she reached the end of the manuscript, making it all up as she went—no outlines, no list of characters with thumbnail descriptions next to the names, not even a note about the solution. Some writers, she admits, begin with the ending and then write what leads up to it, but she never found this method to work for her.

Actually, Rice probably knew very well what she was doing, but the subconscious, creative method worked so well for her that she decided not to tamper with it by analyzing it. This casual approach to discussing her craft fit the type of novel she wrote; she had been a public relations manager, after all, and her instincts served her well.

The situations in her best works are unusual enough to attract the attention of the reader from the first and to remain in the memory afterward. The victim is found in a room in which the clocks have all stopped at three o’clock; a murder committed on a crowded street corner goes unnoticed; a murder victim’s clothes vanish on the way to the morgue; a murderess on death row threatens to haunt the people who had sent her to jail.

Still, a clever situation or plot device is not enough to hold the reader through a series of books without interesting characters. It is in the portrayal of memorable characters, particularly that of John J. Malone, that Rice excels. Take one criminal lawyer, dress him in expensive suits, give him a thirst for good liquor and an appreciation for women and good cigars, and mix well. In the process, make him careless about money and where he leaves the ashes from his cigars. To top it off, give him the instinct of a gambler without his luck. The result is a description of John J. Malone of Chicago, Illinois.

In many ways Craig Rice’s method was to take the traditional stereotypes and clichés of the mystery field and reverse them or hold them up to ridicule. Malone becomes a parody of the hard-boiled detective, with his penchant for rye, his habit of keeping a bottle in his filing cabinet under such imaginative categories as “Confidential” and “Unsolved Cases,” and the frequency with which he finds himself in a strange place with no memory of how he arrived there. His invariable solution is to repair to the nearest bar or other watering hole, perhaps his favorite, Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, and drink until he reconstructs the general condition he was in at the time.

Malone is chronically broke or in search of his retaining fee, playing poker to recoup his losses from the last game, and getting Joe diAngelo to extend him credit for drinks, even to the point of advancing him cash. Maggie O’Leary, his secretary, knows that any expenses on a case will come out of her pocket, assuming that she has been paid that month.

The Fourth Postman

Rice’s 1948 novel, The Fourth Postman, rings the changes on a number of detective-fiction traditions, from the upper-class family of eccentrics to the serial murders. The novel opens with a brief chapter from the point of view of the unknown murderer that sets a tone of tragic suspense. The victim is not identified as a postal carrier (unless the description of his brisk walk and cheerful whistle makes his identity clear). The sudden cut to a dialogue between John J. Malone and Captain Daniel von Flanagan, who never wanted to be a police officer and so resents being a stereotypical Irish cop that he changed his name, alters the mood but continues the suspense. It is this juxtaposition of moods—from murder to farce—that keeps the reader engrossed.

Why would anyone want to kill a postman? Malone offers his answer: to avoid getting bills in the mail—a simple, direct, human reason with which anyone can identify. Still, three postal carriers? In the same alleyway, near the Fairfaxx mansion? There must be a connection.

The chief suspect is the gentle, wealthy, and eccentric Rodney Fairfaxx. (The Fairfaxx family added the extra x to their name to avoid being confused with a notorious individual of the same name.) Rodney is still waiting for a letter from his sweetheart, Annie Kendall, who went to England on the Titanic thirty years earlier and never returned; he labors under the illusion that she is still in England. Rodney is so obviously not guilty that von Flanagan is certain of his guilt, and the family retains Malone to defend him (though they forget to pay his retaining fee).

There are members of the Fairfaxx family who have better motives for the crime than Rodney. Malone sets out to sort them out and in so doing meets his friends from earlier stories, Jake and Helene Justus. The Justuses do not play as large a role in The Fourth Postman as they do in some of the other books, but they are appropriate to the situation nevertheless.

Jake is soon relegated to the sidelines by a case of the chickenpox. His discovery of his ailment and the confusion over the proper way of applying cocoa butter is related in as hilarious a scene as one could wish. (The stray dog Malone acquires and insists on referring to as a rare Australian beer hound has a preference for having it spread on toast.)

Jake’s dazed condition as a result of his illness makes it plausible that he should stumble out of bed, disguise himself as a masked bandit to conceal his identifying facial spots, call a cab, and find the hammer that served as the murder weapon. Given that premise, it becomes equally plausible (and humorous) that at a dramatic climax Helene should find him back in bed, clutching the hammer.

It is determined that this is the real murder weapon and not the hammer wielded by the sinister Karloffian butler Huntleigh when he nailed Malone by his Capper and Capper suit to the cellar wall. The “real” hammer becomes a vital piece of evidence and as useful as the information Malone and Helene gather when they visit Uncle Ernie Fairfaxx in the hospital. Uncle Ernie has been hit by a brick wall (he says) in the same alley where the postal carriers were killed. It is impossible to paraphrase adequately Rice’s depiction of the scene in which Malone, Helene, and Uncle Ernie share the bottle of Bushmill’s Irish whiskey that came in the bottom of the traditional basket of hospital fruit. It would be an equal disservice to the author’s inventiveness to say too much about the disappearance and reappearance of Jake Justus.

As is to be expected in a Craig Rice novel, the clues are distributed fairly throughout the story, and short-range deductions carry the reader along until the final solution is achieved. Throughout, along with running gags such as the questions Malone is asked about the breed of his dog, are gentle philosophical statements, such as Uncle Ernie’s comments about the differences among the rich, the poor, and those in between. Meanwhile, the mysteries, large and small—who killed whom, and who is really whom—are sorted out as well.

Malone receives a check for ten thousand dollars, so that for once in his life he is able to pay his bill at Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar. Ironically, no one, not even gambling chief Max the Hook, will cash the check or even advance him any money on it, for it is signed by Rodney Fairfaxx, and anyone can attest that Rodney Fairfaxx is crazy.

When Craig Rice died in 1957 she left a legacy of detective fiction that has seldom been equaled. At least three writers made the attempt to continue her principal series. In 1960, Laurence Mark Janifer published a novel about John J. Malone titled The Pickled Poodles: A Novel Based on the Characters Created by Craig Rice. It is possible that he was responsible also for the posthumous But the Doctor Died (1967), which was copyrighted by “Followes, Atwill and Ferguson” (names suggestive of at least two of Rice’s former husbands).

People vs. Withers and Malone

More straightforward are the admitted collaborations between Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer, in which Rice supplied the ideas and Palmer polished the final manuscripts: six short stories written for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in which Palmer’s character, Hildegarde Withers, meets Rice’s John J. Malone. Two of the six were written entirely by Palmer following Rice’s death, with plots based on suggestions in her letters. Allowed complete freedom with the character, Palmer framed each story from Malone’s point of view to the extent that Miss Withers’s contribution seems almost secondary. Published over a period of thirteen years, from 1950 to 1963, the stories were collected as People vs. Withers and Malone in 1963.

The April Robin Murders (1958), left unfinished at Rice’s death, was completed by Ed McBain to make the Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak series into a trilogy. Stylistically, there is no indication of where Craig Rice left off and Ed McBain began.

After her death, it was revealed that she had served as a ghostwriter for burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee and (in collaboration with Cleve Cartmill) for George Sanders. There have been other suggestions that, pressed to meet deadlines that continued to elude her, she employed ghostwriters herself on some of her own work, in particular for the short fiction for Manhunt, The Saint Detective Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine that appeared in the 1950’s.

That she may have left behind mysteries of misattributed authorship is of less significance than the legacy of solid work signed Craig Rice. She may have claimed not to understand her own craft, but the series of novels and short stories (The Name Is Malone, 1958) about her Chicago lawyer give the lie to that. In successfully blending humor and detection she created much memorable entertainment that can withstand repeated readings.

Principal Series Characters:

• John Joseph Malone is a Chicago criminal lawyer whose idea of dressing up involves changing his necktie and brushing the cigar ashes from his suit front. When not in his office, he may be found in Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, drinking rye with a beer chaser.
• Jake Justus , a press agent turned saloon owner (having won it on a bet), stays barely sober and barely free of the law in spite of (or because of) his friendship with Malone.
• Helene Brand Justus , Jake’s wife, is a wealthy heiress, a stunning blonde with a patrician beauty, who has an ability to drive men mad with her driving—and a knack for keeping her husband and Malone one step ahead of the law.
• Daniel von Flanagan is an Irish cop who is only trying to do his duty. He has two goals in life: not to be stereotyped as an Irish cop (the “von” was added to his name legally) and to retire “next year” so that he will never have to deal with Malone and the Justuses again.
• Bingo Riggs , who works as a street photographer, is short and skinny, with sandy hair, a sharp, thin face, and a gleam in his eye that no one notices.
• Handsome Kusak , Bingo’s partner and a professional photographer, is six feet, one inch tall with wavy, dark hair. He never forgets a fact, and he recites his knowledge frequently. Kusak and Bingo become detectives in spite of themselves and with no professional training whatsoever.

Bibliography

Dubose, Martha Hailey, with Margaret Caldwell Thomas. Women of Mystery: The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists. New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2000. Contains a short biography and an analysis of Rice’s work. Notes the alcohol that permeated her work and her life.

Dueren, Fred. “John J. Malone (and Cohorts).” The Armchair Detective 8 (1974/1975): 44-47. Profile of several of Rice’s most famous characters.

Grochowski, Mary Ann. “Craig Rice: Merry Mistress of Mystery and Mayhem.” The Armchair Detective 13 (1980): 265-267. Celebration of Rice’s use of humor in her crime fiction.

Klein, Kathleen Gregory, ed. Great Women Mystery Writers: Classic to Contemporary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Contains an essay on the life and works of Rice.

Marks, Jeffrey A. Who Was That Lady? Craig Rice: The Queen of the Screwball Mystery. Lee’s Summit, Mo.: Delphi Books, 2001. Primarily a biography of the novelist, delving into her rather dark life, which contrasts notably with the tone of her fiction; secondary attention is paid to the fiction itself.

Moran, Peggy. “Craig Rice.” In And Then There Were Nine: More Women of Mystery, edited by Jane S. Bakerman. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985. Study of the life and work of Rice, who is discussed alongside Margery Allingham and Patricia Highsmith, among other famous “women of mystery.”

“Mulled Murder, with Spice.” Time 47 (January 28, 1946): 84, 86, 88, 90. Rice is featured on the cover of this issue of Time—the first mystery author ever to receive a cover story in the magazine.