Ten Best Book Buys of 2020 (& Three Great Gifts)

In years to come – presuming they come – I expect I'll look upon this beat-up copy of Arthur Beverley Baxter's The Blower of Bubbles with great affection. I do now. Published in 1920 by McClelland & Stewart, the book is neither rare nor valuable, yet it is this year's most memorable find. It was purchased at the Bookworm in Perth, Ontario, not long after lockdown restrictions had been lifted. Three months had passed since I'd last visited a bookstore. After all that time, I'd have gladly paid for admission.

As might be expected, most of the books added to the bookcase this strange year were bought online. You'll see I was particularly drawn to signed copies – something to do with the daily reminders of mortality, I suppose.

What follows are the nine other titles in this year's top ten. 

An African Millionaire

Grant Allen
New York: Edward Arnold,

   1897

The first American edition, this isn't the best of copies – I am not a wealthy man – but at US$27.00 it was a great find. Responding to my review of Allen's The Woman Who Did, a friend suggested that An African Millionaire is the author's better-known book. Perhaps, but is it as good?

Mon cadavre au Canada

   [Hot Freeze]

Martin Brett [Douglas

   Sanderson; trans Bruno

   Martin]

Paris: Gallimard, 1955

The French translation of our greatest post-war noir novel. The story is abridged and Bruno Martin is clumsy, but that didn't stop me from also buying Estocade au Canada, his translation of Sanderson's A Dum-Dum for the President.

Pascal Berthiaume
Francis DesRoches

Quebec: Elite, 1932

A novel brought to my attention by Jean-Louis Lessard of Laurentiana. His review of this short novel of romance and small town politics intrigued. I was not disappointed!

Signed by the author.

Married, Yet No Wife;

   Or, Told in the Twilight
Mary Agnes Fleming

New York: Street &

   Smith, [c. 1916]

A fragile paperback published during the Wilson administration, it crumbles to the touch. The nineteenth-century Carleton editions hold up better, but I do like that cover. The title, which predates same-sex marriage in Canada by more than a century, intrigues.

PeeVee
Fred Jacob
Toronto: Macmillan, 1928

Bland boards, lacking dust jacket – please tell me one has survived – and still this ranks as one of my favourite finds. I've been meaning to read poor Fred Jacob for ages. The first sentence grabbed me: "In the Hortop family, innovation was looked upon as something to be combated."

The Twenty-first Burr
Victor Lauriston

Toronto: McClelland &

   Stewart, 1922

An early Canadian mystery, this is Lauriston's only novel. Amongst his other books are A Century of Milling, 1848-1948: the story of the T.H. Taylor Company Limited, Chatham, Ontario and Blue Flame of Service: A History of Union Gas Company and the Natural Gas Industry in Southwestern Ontario. Inscribed by the author.

Mine Inheritance
Frederick Niven
Toronto: Dent, 1945

Niven never had much of a profile, so how is it that Mine Inheritance, of which I'd never heard, was once abridged and edited as a school text? This copy, found in an Ottawa bookstore, came from the library of Henry C. Miller, founder of the legendary Graphic Publishers.

The Devastator
Arthur Stringer

Indianapolis: Bobbs-

   Merrill, 1944

The last of Stringer's forty-four novels, I purchased this on a whim, sight unseen, from an online bookseller located in author's birthplace (Chatham, Ontario). Hollywood figures, as it did in the life of the author. Will you look at that cover! Signed by Stringer!

Psyche
Phyllis Brett Young

Toronto: Longmans, 1959

The first edition of the author's first novel –  signed by the author, with a gift inscription from her mother – how this ended up in a Wallingford, Oxfordshire bookshop is anyone's guess. It has now been repatriated. I made the purchase while working on the Ricochet reissue of The Ravine, Phyllis Brett Young's only thriller.

Three generous souls sent books which, had they not been gifts, would have been considered amongst the year's best buys:

Dale of the Mounted:

   Atomic Plot
Joe Holliday

Toronto: Allen,

   [1959]

Of the fourteen Dale of the Mounted books, this is the one I'd most wanted to read. I mentioned as much when reviewing Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment. Chris Otto of Papergreat heard my wish.

CAW-CAW Ballads
Wilson MacDonald
Toronto: The Author, 1930

Number 449 in this "AUTHOR'S EDITION, WHICH IS LIMITED, NUMBERED AND AUTOGRAPHED." The poet inscribed this copy to Healey Willan. A gift from Fiona Smith, does this go in my MacDonald collection or my Willan collection? I can't decide!

 

The Private War of

   Jacket Coates
Herbert Fairly Wood
Toronto: Longmans,

   1966

A gift from old pal James Calhoun, who worked with me in returning Peregrine Acland's All Else is Folly to print. The Private War of Jacket Coates is Canada's only novel of the Korean War. How is it that there was only one? And why is he title so bad? I aim to find out.

There's more to my purchase of Arthur Beverley Baxter's The Blower of Bubbles. On that day I was in Perth for the celebration of the 101st birthday of André Hissink, my grandfather.

A man born in 1919, in the midst of the Spanish Flu pandemic, two months after his 101st birthday he came down with COVID-19... and he beat it.

Here's hoping I share those genes.

Here's hoping you all are safe and well.

Related posts:

The Twenty Best Book Buys of 2019
Best Book Buys of 2018 (four of which were gifts)
Ten Best Book Buys of 2017 (one of which was a gift)

The Ten Best Book Buys of a Very Bad Year (2016)

Ten of the Best; Spanking Good Book Buys of 2015

Done With Buying Books (2014)

The Atomic Dale; or, The Mounties Mess Up?

Dale of the Mounted: Atomic Plot
Joe Holliday
Toronto: Allen, [1959]
158 pages

The ninth in the twelve-volume Dale of the Mounted series, Atomic Plot is a novel I'd long wanted to read, but stubbornness stood in my way. For years, I watched copies being bought and sold online, all the while convinced I'd stumble upon one at a garage sale or thrift store.

I scored Atlantic Assignment, my first Dale, at a Friends of the St Marys Public Library book sale. Dale of the Mounted in the Northwest was found at a yard sale ten minutes from our home. I can't remember how I came to own Dale of the Mounted in Newfoundland. All that effort, all that searching, and yet Atomic Plot remained elusive.

Then came this generous gift from Chris Otto of Papergreat.

Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment is one the most amusing novels I've ever read. I enjoyed it so much that I reworked my original review for inclusion in The Dusty Bookcase book. Rereading those reviews today, after Atomic Plot, has me wondering whether I wasn't too harsh on the mountie.

Hear me out.

Dale of the Mounted: Atomic Plot opens at Ottawa's Uplands Airport – now Macdonald-Cartier International – where Constable Dale Thompson awaits the arrival of Doctor Sachi Rami, "a man learned in physics, a man whose knowledge the atomic sciences made him one of the leading figures in the Far East field of atomic energy." A Pakistani (Holliday refers to his nationality as "Pakistan"), Rami is travelling from his home country so that he might study the nuclear reactors at Chalk River Laboratories. Dale's assignment is to protect the doctor and his travelling party while they're in the country. He's been informed, by the Deputy Commissioner no less, that "certain fanatical, political groups in India" look to prevent Rami from taking this "atomic knowledge" back to Pakistan.

Rami arrives on a Trans-Canada Air Lines Viscount, accompanied by an imposing Sikh bodyguard, and a young secretary named Kelomé. As he disembarks, the doctor is attacked by a fellow passenger. The bodyguard takes action, throwing the assailant off the stairway and onto the tarmac. Dale rushes Rami and his party into an awaiting limousine and they head off to a suite that has been reserved at the Château Laurier. From there, the constable phones RCMP headquarters to report the incident:

The Deputy Commissioner finally came on the telephone. His instructions were, as usual, short and to the point. "I want you to make arrangements to be with Doctor Sachi Rami at all times. I understand he has some sort of Sikh bodyguard with him, but I want you to be personally responsible for him!" 

Let us pause to consider:

The RCMP has received intelligence that a group of Indian fanatics look to target a prominent Pakistani scientist on Canadian soil. The threat is taken so seriously that the Deputy Commissioner is personally involved, and yet he assigns just one member of the force to provide security for the scientist and his companions. That man, Constable Dale Thompson, holds the lowest rank in the RCMP. When told of the thwarted attack at the airport, the Deputy Commission does nothing more than repeat his original instructions. No additional security is provided.

And now, consider this:

The following afternoon, a Pakistan High Commission limousine arrives to transport Rami and his party to Rockcliffe, where they are to watch the famous RCMP Musical Ride. The chauffeur, Dale has been told, knows the area well, and yet – curiously – needs directions. On the drive back, Dale notices that they're being followed by an old Pontiac. This doesn't prevent him from directing the chauffeur to Nepean Point, so that the foreign visitors can admire the view. The Pontiac follows the limo into the park, but Dale dismisses this as a coincidence. There's a sudden flurry of activity as the chauffeur points the limo toward the river and leaps from the vehicle. Dale grabs the wheel. The Pontiac rams their car, picks up the chauffeur, and takes off. Rami and company receive minor injuries. It's later discovered that the actual High Commission chauffeur had lost the limo to a carjacking.

So, where are we now?

There have been two assassination attempts in the first twenty-four hours, and Dale was present for both. He thought nothing about the High Commission chauffeur's ignorance, and wasn't concerned about the Pontiac. The Deputy Commissioner doesn't remove Dale from the case, nor does he assign additional members of the force. It's off to Chalk River!

Chalk River Laboratories in 1958

Things slow down at this point so as to familiarize the reader with Chalk River Laboratories, the "famed Colombo Plan," and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. Eight pages are devoted to a high school-level physics lecture delivered to visiting students from "Ottawa University." Dozens more pages are sacrificed to the nature of the atom, descriptions of Chalk River's various reactors, a Van der Graaff generator, the various vehicles owed by the facility, living accommodations offered to employees of AECL, and the municipal status of nearby Deep River. Mixed into all this are dribs and drabs of plot and plotting, as when copper medallions turn up in the doctor's room and those of his companions. A panicked Rami hands his over to Dale:

Now, one-third of the way through my second Dale of the Mounted book, I'd come to know the man. It was for this reason that it came as no surprise that the constable fails to inform the Deputy Commissioner of this turn of events. Dale rarely checks in – though, to be fair, no one at RCMP headquarters expects him to do so.

Days pass.

Dale notices that three Indian atomic scientists are also visiting Chalk River. Quite by chance, he discovers that Kelomé, Dr Rami's secretary, is secretly communicating with the trio. Next, a shipment of uranium rods is found to be faulty, and the truck returning them to the manufacturer is hijacked. A second truck arrives carrying the very same rods. The driver is held. Fingerprints are sent to the RCMP in Ottawa, where it's discovered that he's the owner of the Pontiac used to ram the limousine at Nepean Point.

Do the RCMP send more officers to Chalk River?

They do not.

The truck driver is killed, and two guards are injured, when the car in which they are travelling is forced off the road by another carrying the three Indian scientists.

Dale encourages the trio's release:

Dale uses the very same wait-and-see tactic in Atlantic Assignment – which, I remind, is an earlier adventure – resulting in the escape of a saboteur, the kidnappings of two servicemen (one of whom is left blind), the loss of two Royal Canadian Navy Grumman Avengers, and the near destruction of HMCS Bonaventure.

Despite Dale's history, the Deputy Commissioner agrees to the plan, adding that two more constables will be assigned in the case. Unfortunately, they never arrive. Did the Deputy Commissioner forget? Did Joe Holliday? Either way, things go very badly... after several pages devoted to the Betameter, sodium 24, and cobalt-60. Somewhere in the mix, we learn that the man who had attacked Rami at Uplands Airport escaped RCMP custody, only to be shot dead by his compatriots.

At long last, the Indian scientists, who we now know to be fanatics, attack as Dale, Rami, the bodyguard, and Kelomé are watching the installation of new uranium rods in the NRX reactor. What follows doesn't make much sense. Keith Ward's jacket illustration reflects its weakness in that five more figures should feature. Confusion often accompanies violence, but here the fault lies in Holliday's inability to keep track of his characters. Any description of the action would be pointless; it is the outcome that matters:

• Kelomé has been revealed as one of the Indian fanatics;
• an employee has suffered a blow to the head and a six-foot fall;
• a broken uranium rod has caused a deadly build-up of radiation;
• two of the Indian fanatics died of gunshot wounds;
• the third Indian fanatic stole a truck, only to die in a crash;
• the NRX reactor has to be shut down for several months. 

It was Kelomé who shot and killed the two Indians because – I'm guessing – she was angry that the attack didn't come off exactly as planned. Her motivation isn't clear.

And what of the fanatics? Was their real goal to destroy the reactor? Why didn't Kelomé shoot Rami when she had the chance? Why didn't her fellow fanatics? What were they all about, anyway? "These [Indian] fanatics are utterly opposed to atomic energy and want no part of this knowledge to come to their country," the Deputy Commissioner says when handing Dale the assignment; yet, Kelomé aside, each of the fanatics involved were atomic scientists.

In the closing pages, the reader learns that Kelomé herself is expected to suffer an agonizing death as ta result of her exposure to the broken uranium rod... and so, everything wraps up nicely:

Dale and the RCMP, satisfied that the danger to the Pakistan doctor and his party was now over, decided there was no further need for Dale to act as daily bodyguard.

I wouldn't have thought that fanatical groups give up so easily – but then, what do I know about security, law enforcement, and intelligence?

For that matter, what do Dale and the RCMP?

Editorial note: Everything I've read about the Khaksar Movement suggests it is grossly mischaracterized by Holliday.

Favourite passage: It should come as no surprise that Dale's main contact at Chalk River Laboratories isn't its Chief of Security, but a public relations man named Clyde Karnell. After the novel's climax, the character exits the book thusly:

"Boy! It's going to be dull when you leave Chalk and Deep River. We haven't had that much excitement since the NRX blew its stack in 1952! Well! see [sic] you tomorrow1" He put on his jacket and departed.

Here the public relations man is referencing an event that is generally considered the first serious accident involving a nuclear reactor. It is rated 5 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. For the sake of comparison, Three Mile Island shares the very same rating.

Mea culpa: I've broken a New Year's resolution.

Object and Access: A slim volume bound in burgundy boards with blue text. Dale of the Mounted: Atomic Plot enjoyed one printing with Thomas Allen. An American edition was published in 1959 by Pennington Press.

One copy of the Pennington edition is listed for sale online. Priced at US$8.18, is it a bargain? It has no dust jacket. A Good+ (w/ Good dust jacket) copy of the Allen edition is on offer from an Edmonton bookseller. Price C$13.00. Needless to say, this is the one to purchase.

Library and Archives Canada and seven of our academic libraries have copies.

Related post:

Dale's Dumb Luck; or, A Mountie Messes Up

Yeah, I Know the Muffled Man

The Mystery of the Muffled Man

Max Braithwaite

Toronto: Little, Brown, 1962

160 pages

Fifty-five years ago, The Mystery of the Muffled Man vied with Joe Holliday's Dale of the Mounted in Hong Kong as a Christmas gift for young, bookish nephews. I doubt either won, but it would not surprise

me if the former achieved greater sales. After thirteen volumes, Holliday's Dale of the Mounted books were getting tired; I think it worth noting that the Hong Kong adventure would be his last. Braithwaite's, on the other hand, was part of the Secret Circle, a new and exciting series driven by a survey of booksellers, librarians, teachers and, most importantly, Scarborough school children and their parents.

Results in hand, General Editor Arthur Hammond, set about recruiting what was described in a November 1962 press release as "the best available Canadian authors."

It seems that most were too busy.

The Secret Circle stable was very small,  containing veteran workhorses like Robert Collins, Lawrence Earl, David Gammon, and Scott Young. Hammond himself contributed two of the series' twelve books, while dictating length, plot points, and endings for the others.

The extent of Hammond's influence on The Mystery of the Muffled Man might make for an interesting paper, but I'm not the one to write it. Braithwaite's first novel, preceding Why Shoot the Teacher by three years, this one is a bit of a bore. It begins with a chilly wait for a train in

a northern Ontario mining town. Young Chris Summerville has been sent by his parents to meet his cousin, equally-young Carol Fitzpatrick, who will be visiting while her parents spend the Christmas holidays in Bermuda. Eventually, the train arrives, but before Chris meets Carol there is an altercation that will hang over the remainder of the novel. Chris's overly-friendly dog, Arthur, runs to greet the new arrivals, only to be clubbed by a "muffled man" who had emerged from the train. Carol later tells her cousin of some suspicious behaviour the muffled man exhibited on the train: pouring over maps, avoiding RCMP officers, and pretending to have a broken left arm.

There's little more worth reporting, except to say that The Mystery of the Muffled Man is a novel bereft of mystery. The character who clubs a dog is obviously the villain. Why is he in the northern Ontario mining town? Well, the only thing we know of the area's history is that there had been a bank robbery ten years earlier, and that the money was never found.

By far the most interesting thing about the novel is how little the muffled man figures. Accompanied by friend Dumont LePage, Chris and Carol decide to go ice fishing, get lost in the woods, climb an old fire tower to get their bearings, and discover an abandoned gold mine. After a cave-in separates him from the rest of the group, Chris sees the muffled man digging to retrieve the stolen loot and empties the bullets from his unattended rifle. Chris's father and two RCMP officers show up in the nick of time, resulting in this climactic passage:

"You stay here with the boy," Constable Scott said to Mr Summerville. "We'll deal with him." And, holding their guns at the ready, the two uniformed men moved down the tunnel.
     In five minutes it was over. The muffled man, trapped by the wall of fallen stone, and with an empty gun in his hands, was quickly overpowered.

Before dismissing The Mystery of the Muffled Man as the weakest novel read this year, it's only fair to acknowledge that it wasn't written with me in mind. The survey that informed the Secret Circle was conducted before I was even born. What's more, I've never so much as considered living in Scarborough.

Trivia: Jack McClelland once encouraged a hard-up Norman Levine to contribute to the series.

Object: A compact hardcover with eight illustrations of varying quality by Joseph Rosenthal. My copy, not nearly so nice as the one pictured above, was purchased three years ago at a London book store. Price: 60¢

Access: WorldCat records a grand total of two Canadian libraries holding the Little, Brown edition. It also lists a 1981 Bantam-Seal paperback, and something titled The Muffled Man (Scarborough: Nelson, 1990).

Interestingly, no copies of the Bantam-Seal and Nelson editions are on offer from online booksellers. The original Little, Brown came and went with a single printing. Though not many copies are listed online, it is cheap. Very Good copies begin at US$8.00. At US$30.10, the most expensive is an inscribed copy offered by an Ontario bookseller.

Remarkably, the novel has been translated into Dutch (Avontuur in een goudmijn) and Swedish (Mysteriet med den maskerade mannen).

Related posts:

Braithwaite's True First

Condensed CanLit
Dale's Dumb Luck; or, A Mountie Messes Up

Dale's Dumb Luck; or, A Mountie Messes Up

Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment
Joe Holliday
Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1956

First off, I should make it clear that the book I really wanted to read is Dale of the Mounted: Atomic Plot. Published in 1959, it involves a Pakistani scientist, East Indian religious fanatics and a terrorist attack on Canada's Chalk River nuclear research facility. I read Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment only because it turned up in our local library's most recent used book sale.

The Globe & Mail,
1 November 1952

That I haven't come across any others says something about the passage of time, I think. Dale of the Mounted books were once very popular, each landing in early November so as to take advantage of Christmas gift giving. Having been born the year the series ended, I never received one myself, but I remember a friend's older brother having a few.

Dale of the Mounted is Constable Dale Thompson. His "Atlantic Assignment" follows Dale of the Mounted in Newfoundland as the sixth adventure in six years. As in the previous book, Dale sets aside his Red Serge to adopt the guise of a journalist. Where in Newfoundland he was on the trail of Portuguese smugglers, here Dale investigates suspicious incidents that have taken place on HMCS Pegasus, Canada's newest aircraft carrier.

Was there really a time in which it fell to the RCMP to investigate possible crimes of sabotage aboard Royal Canadian Navy ships? If so, would that task have been entrusted to a constable? And why is Dale a constable, anyway? After all he accomplished in the previous books, isn't a promotion long overdue?

These were the first questions raised in reading Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment. Though not answered, by the end of the first chapter they'd been supplanted by another that I simply could not shake: How is it that Dale is still alive?

If Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment is anything to go by, the constable should've died in the series' first book. His end might have come at the hands of a foe or while cleaning his gun, but he would be dead.

Dale never gets a chance to investigate past incidents. He's newly arrived on the aircraft carrier when a mysterious fire breaks out, destroying two planes. The challenge in describing what comes next involves time; Holliday is never terribly clear as to just when events take place in this novel. His narrative is lost in irrelevant facts and figures. These aren't presented as red herrings, rather they serve to pad.

Dale learns all about sonobuoys, the Habbakuk Project, Pratt & Whitney Wright Cyclone engines, and a navigation and interception computer invented by an RCAF Wing Commander. One of the novel's 158 pages is devoted to the ins and outs of automobile ownership in Bermuda.

As the Mountie struggles to stay focussed, he's easily outpaced by his lone suspect, a mechanic named Joe DeMarco. The Pegasus loses three more planes, though this does not prevent the carrier from participating in a "United Nations sea exercise". The ship's commanding officer takes it all in stride:

The plane was lost.
     When the young Mountie said how impressed he was with the part that aircraft carriers played in the war games Captain Grayson smiled. He liked anyone who thought that carriers were the finest things afloat. 

Captain Grayson likes Dale so much that he readily follows the young Mountie's advice. When dynamite is discovered in DeMarco's toolbox, Dale suggests they play a waiting game:

"I've a hunch that DeMarco can't plant any kind of time bomb unless he has plenty of time to do it. Unless I'm badly mistaken, the movies tonight will give him that big chance. Let us attend the movies. I'll keep within sight of DeMarco. I'll watch every move he makes. If he leaves the flight deck I'll follow him."

DeMarco does leave the deck. Dale follows but is knocked out cold (for the second of three times). The next morning, the mechanic manages a flight off the carrier, resulting in the loss of yet another plane.

As it turns out, DeMarco is one of two fifth columnists. The Mountie doesn't get either man. What happens is that the first saboteur kills the second, then plunges to his death in a kamikaze-like attack on the Pegasus. It's only through a bizarre accident that the carrier is saved. The attacks were the work of a Balkan "dictator country" – though why it targeted the Pegasus is anyone's guess.

The novel ends improbably with a chance meeting between Dale and the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I was distracted by the narrator's cock up in referring to the latter as a diplomat – five times in less than a page – so didn't quite recognized its importance as a set-up for the series' next book. I was put right by the lamest of endings:

The promised adventure, Dale of the Mounted: DEW Line Duty, arrived in stores the following November. Five more adventures followed. The series ended in 1962 with Dale of the Mounted in Hong Kong, in which Dale is finally killed.

Okay, I don't know for a fact that he dies – but, really, dumb luck can only last so long.

Dedication:

For The Men Of The

Royal Canadian Navy

particularly the crew of

HMCS BONADVENTURE [sic]

(aircraft carrier)

Trivia:

The Globe & Mail, 14 November 1953

The Globe & Mail, 26 November 1955

The Globe & Mail, 17 November 1956

The Globe & Mail, 15 November 1958

A bonus:

Object: A 158-page hardcover in burgundy boards with dark blue type. The dust jacket illustration is by Bob Turnbull. My copy was once presented as a Christmas gift.

I've not been able to identify Wayne or Alan.

Access: Sixteen of our university libraries have copies, as do the Toronto Public Library and Library and Archives Canada.

An American edition, published in 1959 by Pennington Press of Cleveland, Ohio, features a whole mess of illustrations by a man named Bill Humrickhouse. Canadian children had to use their imaginations.

Both the Thomas Allen and Pennington editions can be found online at prices ranging from US$3.50 to US$26.25. The Vermont bookseller trying to get $65.00 for her "Very Good" copy in "Good" jacket is ignored.

Update: I'm reminded by Ralph Mackay of Chumley & Pepys On Books that comedian Dave Broadfoot's Sgt Renfew of the Mounted was forever being knocked out.

His catchphrase: "When I regained consciousness…"