Beast in View by Margaret Millar: A review

Many years ago, around the 1980s as I recall, I was a huge fan of the writing of Ross Macdonald, especially his series featuring hard-boiled detective Lew Archer. During that time, I think I must have read all or most of those books and enjoyed every one. Little did I realize at the time that Macdonald was married to an acclaimed writer of psychological thrillers named Margaret Millar. Millar's books were much-honored and her book Beast in View won the Edgar Award as the best book of the year in 1956. There was a reference to her book in an article I read recently about classic mysteries and I was intrigued. The fact that she was married to Macdonald caught my attention, but the book sounded interesting and I decided to make Millar's acquaintance.

The book fully lives up to the article's praise of it. It is a tightly plotted, suspenseful tale with a surprising twist at the end. It evinces a feeling of the sinister throughout. Millar obviously knew what she was doing.

She gives us thirty-year-old Helen Clarvoe, living alone in a residence hotel in Los Angeles. Helen was heiress to a small fortune, which allowed her to eschew employment as a way of sustaining herself. The source of her inheritance is never really explained but is assumed to be her dead father. Her mother and younger brother Douglas are both still alive but she is estranged from them; again, we don't really know why. Even though she only lives a few miles away from the family home where both of her relatives live, Helen doesn't talk to them for months at a time.

Helen is a singularly solitary figure with no known friends and no regular human contacts other than the people who work at the hotel. And she is frightened. She has been receiving bizarre phone calls and, even though there is no overt threat, she feels threatened by them. The caller is someone who insists that Helen knows her but Helen cannot recognize the name.

She has no one she can turn to, but, eventually, she thinks of the investment counselor who advised her father and now advises her. She contacts Paul Blackshear and asks him to investigate. He is reluctant since private investigation is way beyond his skill set, but Helen seems so desperate that he finally agrees to do what he can.

As he wades into the mystery, Blackshear begins to realize that something very strange is happening here. He traces the person who is named as the caller fairly easily and he talks to Helen's mother and brother but the mystery only deepens. As he seeks an answer to the puzzle, he sees that there is a predatory and treacherous nature behind it all, but what exactly is the identity of that nature?

Millar has some truly marvelous lines scattered throughout the book. This one stands out for me, an observation by Blackshear as he meets with Helen:

Blackshear felt a great pity for her not because of her tears but because of all the struggle it had taken to produce them.

And with that line we know that perhaps all is not quite as it seems with Helen.

In another encounter, we get a description of the messages relayed by the mystery caller:

"She's crafty, she hasn't had to do any of the destroying herself. She just throws in the bone and lets the dogs fight each other over it. And there's usually some meat of truth on the bone."

Innuendo can be a powerful weapon indeed.

My only real criticism of the book is that I would have liked more exposition regarding just what led Helen to be the person she is. We are left to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations and I assume that was intentional by the author, but I wish she would have fleshed out that part of the story just a bit more.

By the way, the book that Millar beat out for the Edgar Award in 1956? The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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