Summer reading: Classic mysteries are having a moment — here are a couple of favorites

In the famous opening sentence of his 1836 essay, “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that “Our age is retrospective.” If true once, this hardly seems so anymore in a digital era of relentless future shock. But for devotees of old-time detection, recent publishing does seem surprisingly retrospective, even nostalgic. British Library Crime Classics, Library of Congress Crime Classics, American Mystery Classics, Soho Crime, Locked Room International, Stark House Press, Crippen & Landru and several others have been zealously reissuing hard-to-find whodunits from the crime genre’s early-to-mid-20th-century heyday. Why? In part because wise readers, weary of constant social media chatter and discord, know they can always find quiet and refreshment in improbably complicated stories about murder.

The only real problem is choice. After my usual waffling, I finally settled down last week with recent reissues of C. Daly King’s “Obelists at Sea” (Penzler/american Mystery Classics) and Christianna Brand’s “Green for Danger” (Poisoned Pen/british Library Crime Classics).

What is an obelist? According to the original publisher’s explanatory note, “an Obelist is one who harbors suspicions.” Several figures in King’s novel fit this definition, but at center stage are four psychologists, of differing schools, who are traveling by sea to an international conference.

In the novel’s first chapter, an officer of the SS Meganaut is conducting a cocktail-hour competition in which passengers bid for various numbers, hoping to acquire the one that will match the distance in nautical miles the ship will travel the next day. While sipping drinks at a table with his daughter Coralie and two young men, the wealthy financier Victor Timothy Smith consistently outbids a lawyer named de Brasto for the number 634. Smith starts doing it again for the number 640 when the lights suddenly fail, a woman’s voice is heard outbidding both gentlemen, a chair crashes to the floor, and a single shot echoes through the darkened room. When the lights come back on, de Brasto is standing with a gun in his hand. Smith has been shot in the heart, and the beautiful Coralie appears to have fainted from shock.

An open-and-shut case, one would think. But de Brasto - a shady lawyer on the outs with the mob - claims that, just as the electricity failed, he glimpsed the contract killer who’d been on his trail. In self-defense, he instinctively pulled out his own gun, and both men fired almost simultaneously. De Brasto maintains that it must have been the bullet of this now-vanished assassin that struck Smith - though he finds it mystifying, albeit a relief, that a professional somehow missed his intended target. In fact, medical examination reveals an oddity to the dead financier’s wound: Smith appears to have been shot twice in precisely the same place. There’s also an additional puzzle in the case: Who could have wrenched a valuable string of pearls from Coralie’s neck during the blackout?

Such is King’s initial setup, but matters turn out to be far more complicated than that. Way more complicated.

So the Meganaut’s Captain Mansfield turns to the four psychologists on board for help. Conditioned behavior, an inferiority complex, the will to power, neurological or even digestive disorders, racial prejudice: Could any or all of these be relevant to the crime and its solution? A second murder further thickens the plot.

With its extravagant cast of characters, several delicious improbabilities and some almost kitschy psychological theorizing, “Obelists at Sea” sails right along, delivering highly agreeable light entertainment. I haven’t even mentioned the alluring cardsharp Madame Sudeau, Captain Mansfield’s comical breakfasts, the disappearing body, Coralie’s secret or some astonishing conversations about the nature of love and marriage. Experienced readers of detective fiction will probably guess several key plot points long before the various obelists do. No matter. I look forward to someday reading King’s second, and reportedly even more complicated, 1935 mystery, “Obelists Fly High.” It begins with an epilogue and ends with a prologue.

Christianna Brand’s “Green for Danger” was made into a notable 1946 film with Inspector Cockrill played by Alastair Sim (best known as Scrooge in a beloved screen version of “A Christmas Carol”). The book itself is a tour de force of misdirection.

Picture a World War II hospital out in the country, under constant stress as it cares for people wounded in the never-ending German bombing raids. Three principal doctors are doing their best to keep up: a sexually charismatic Harley Street surgeon, an elderly general practitioner whose life was blighted by the hit-and-run death of his only child, and a young anesthesiologist, now under a cloud following an operation that went wrong through no fault of his own. Assisting them are various nurses and young women who have volunteered. In between surgeries and changing bandages, love affairs have blossomed and wilted, promises have been made and hearts left broken.

One night an old gent is brought in after a bomb has destroyed the local pub. The next day, just as he’s being wheeled into the operating theater, he suddenly, half deliriously shouts, “Where have I heard that voice?” During the relatively simple procedure something goes inexplicably wrong with his breathing, and he dies on the table. Naturally, a pro forma investigation is required and, in due course Inspector Cockrill - imagine a British Columbo - realizes that the patient has actually been murdered. But how? By whom? And why? In a tragic sense, the war itself is the ultimate cause.

Only seven flawed but essentially likable people ever saw the old man, yet one of them must be the killer. As Cockrill’s investigation continues, the murderer strikes again, this time carefully leaving the victim’s body laid out in a soiled and torn hospital gown.

While the modus operandi in the initial murder seems pretty obvious, I doubt many readers will guess the person Cockrill finally arrests - or what happens afterward. Still, pay attention to the background information in the book’s opening chapter. Not that it’ll do you any good. After all, there’s a reason “Green for Danger” is counted as one of the most dazzling - and poignant mysteries of all time.