Dulcie Gray - Died in the Red

[andydecker]

Dulcie Gray – Died in the Red (Macdonald 1968, this translation 1969, Desch Verlag)

After reading a few of her horrible horror shorts in the Pan Books, I had to read something other from her. As her crime novels are hard to get, I lucked out and found one translation, done in a long-running - and long forgotten - paperback crime imprint of the early 70s.

Died in the Red is a typical police procedural of its time. Murder at the hairdresser. A customer gets electrocuted with a hair dryer, a scissor is rammed into her breast and her hair is dyed red – all while there are customers in the shop. Inspector Cardiff, Grays's hero of a few novels, is on the case.

The murder is very complicated and pretty unbelievable, seems to be right out of Midsomer Murder, come to think of it. But as a time capsule this short novel is a lot of fun. There are thirteen (!) employees in the shop, which is situated in London Paddington West, and all are introduced at the beginning, which affords quite a lot of concentration from the reader.

There are three hair stylists and their assistants, a manicurist, a woman who only makes snacks for the customers and the employees, a girl who only does the dyeing and so on, and all of this is described as a pretty small establishment in a bad part of the city. Guess the business has really changed in the 50 years since publication.

While the murder investigation is pretty ho-hum and Cardiff and his boys sure are nothing like The Sweeney, and a lot of the revelations and connections of the suspects are not very convincing, one has to applaud Dulcie for her deft characterisations. They are spot on, she even manages it to appear plausible that the happily married Cardiff develops some feelings for a beautiful suspect. Every major figure gets it spot on the stage and come across as three-dimensional human beings. The setting appears to be more end of the 50s and early 60s, no swinging London here at all.

For all its faults, it is a fast and amusing read, missing the heavy-handedness and preaching which is so common in contemporary crime novels, which doubtless would need thrice the length for this. And still the murder is quite gruesome. Quite a shame that Ms. Grays's novels are OOP.

[Swampirella]

Sounds rather wonderful,  thanks for the post!

[mrhappy]

Dulcie Gray - Stage-Door Fright: A Collection of Horror and Other Stories (1977 MacDonald & Jane)

Mumsie
The Scarlet Butterfly
The Dream House
The Fur Brooch
Preview
The Necklace
The Happy Return
The Beautiful People
Stage-Door Fright
Pick Up
Jump To It
English Rose
The Defeat of Thermopylae
The Window Watcher
The Happy Woman
The Brindle Bull Terrier
The Fly
The Victim
The Babysitter
The Sign

Somewhat rare collection of most of Gray's short fiction (including all of her Pan stories) that was released in the late 70's.  The majority of the other stories are crime/suspense oriented but almost all feature some horrific moments.  While there is nothing near the level of The Babysitter I still recommend this one as Gray was an excellent wordsmith and her stories are always enjoyable.


Mr Happy
 

[Swampirella]

May 31, 2020 15:25:49 GMT mrhappy said:

Dulcie Gray - Stage-Door Fright: A Collection of Horror and Other Stories (1977 MacDonald & Jane)

Mumsie
The Scarlet Butterfly
The Dream House
The Fur Brooch
Preview
The Necklace
The Happy Return
The Beautiful People
Stage-Door Fright
Pick Up
Jump To It
English Rose
The Defeat of Thermopylae
The Window Watcher
The Happy Woman
The Brindle Bull Terrier
The Fly
The Victim
The Babysitter
The Sign

Somewhat rare collection of most of Gray's short fiction (including all of her Pan stories) that was released in the late 70's.  The majority of the other stories are crime/suspense oriented but almost all feature some horrific moments.  While there is nothing near the level of The Babysitter I still recommend this one as Gray was an excellent wordsmith and her stories are always enjoyable.

Thanks for mentioning it; too bad it's so rare and expensive. I'll have to remain content with her stories in the Pan collection.

[helrunar]

I knew of Dulcie Gray as an actress, but it turns out she wrote the source story for the Night Gallery episode "A Feast of Blood" (which I think may have originated from her story "The Fur Brooch"). I remember that one well. It had a really ridiculous monster but I still enjoyed it.

Interesting to see that in old age she appeared in an episode of the TV series Tales from the Crypt. When young, she appeared in a film version of Josephine Tey's The Franchise Affair. Josephine Tey was a marvelous writer who alas left far too few books before her own early death.

H.