A regular visitor to this site, who goes by the mysterious name of Mike (not Linda), wrote a comical pseudo-review of a nonexistent Golden Age detective novel, which I asked him for permission to post in the comments section of my recent item on mystery criticism. Mike sent it to me for posting, but it’s really too good to hide in the comments section where many visitors might miss it. So here it is for your enjoyment.

Mike is clearly influenced by the twentieth century American humorist S. J. Perelman in this item, and it’s a salutary influence indeed. I hope that you’ll enjoy it.

We hark back to the nostalgic years of pre-World War Two America, when men were men and women frequently noticed. As the book opens, the voluptuous but inert body–and what a body!–of TOODLES ("BOOM-BOOM") LaTOUR is discovered on the floor of her backstage dressing room at THE PALAC (they couldn’t afford another E), a burlesque theater way, way, way, way, WAY off Broadway, somewhere just east of the Continental Shelf. In her left hand is a bag of golf clubs, in her right a letter from the draft board; sticking out of her chest is a six-foot-long harpoon.

When the coroner determines that Toodles died laughing, suspicion immediately falls upon TWINKLES, the sad-faced, baggy pants clown; it was well known that Twinkles had been having a torrid affair with both Toodles and his hot water heater–but the thermophilic jester is able to establish an alibi with dozens of burn marks all over his chest. Additionally, the golf clubs clearly indicate that the murderer must be a Republican, yet Twinkles had voted for Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk in the same election.

By now our SLEUTH–I haven’t mentioned him, have I? He’s the ruggedly handsome Hollywood leading man type, a delightful cross between Cary Grant and Margaret Rutherford and smarter than a bagful of gossip columnists–our sleuth, as I say, has his hands full, juggling squealing CHORUS LINE GIRLS (which they don’t mind AT ALL), surly ANIMAL ACTS (an incensed penguin flips him a flipper), and an exasperated THEATER MANAGER who’s constantly pulling his (the sleuth’s) hair out and blubbering about how the show must go on.

Our sleuth stops the theater manager from hair-pulling by shooting him in the foot and turns his attention to THE LEAST LIKELY SUSPECT, a gay–maybe–carefree man about town, SIR REGINALD NASAL-SEPTUM, recently imported from England in a shipment of crumpets and red herrings. But again, frustration for our detective! Sir Reginald can confim his alibi: At the time of the murder, he was dancing cheek-to-cheek with Fay Wray on the dirigible mooring mast atop the EmpireState Building.

After six weeks in a trance (and two more in the hospital getting transfusions), he figures it out: The penguin dunnit! And so he dun– er, did: Toodles and the dapper fashion plate had had a frigid affairwhen she was stationed at McMurdo Sound with Dr. Samuel Johnson and the Trapp Family Singers, but things turned sour when she revealed her peccadilloes to him. "Nobody shows me their peccadilloes and lives!" he ejaculated; "I shall have my re-wenge!"

And what was the give-away clue? "Elementary," declares our sleuth; "everybody knows penguins hunt peccadilloes with golf clubs."

–Mysteriously yours,–Mike