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Leandra: The date is Friday, 16th January, 1920.
At the Metropolitan Club in Washington D.C., Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and future 32nd president of the US, Franklin D Roosevelt spends this winter evening drinking champagne with other members of the Harvard class of 1904. Further north, on a New York City sidewalk, Gold’s Liquor Store sets out Wicker baskets filled with its remaining inventory marked by a sign reading: “Every bottle, $1.” On the Westcoast, Stanford University student Ken Lilly drives with two classmates through the late-night streets of San Jose when his car crashes into a telephone pole. The driver and his passengers would recover, but the 40-gallon barrel of wine they’d been transporting dyes the street red. Meanwhile, Evangelist Billy Sunday speaks to ten thousand of his followers in Virginia. He proclaims victoriously, “The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.”
The date is Friday, 16th January, 1920, and tomorrow the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages will be prohibited in the United States.
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Welcome to Shedunnit. I’m Leandra Griffith, Caroline’s production assistant and a scholar of detective fiction myself. You may remember that I was on the show this time last year, talking to Caroline about my masters thesis on Miss Marple. While I do read a lot of British crime fiction, I also like to explore what writers in America were doing with the genre at the same time. And I’ve been wondering: is it possible to read American crime fiction from the golden age, interwar period and not be all too aware of the effect that prohibition had on the culture and society it depicts? Today, we’ll be sneaking into the speakeasy to find out.
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Prohibition in the United States lasted from 1920 to 1933. During this time, Americans were not allowed to manufacture, sell, transport, import, or export alcohol, thanks to the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the US constitution. Did this amendment prevent all of the above from happening? Absolutely not. Enter Speakeasies, bootleggers, organised crime, and a hefty increase in Canadian alcohol exports.
But why did prohibition occur in the first place? The most common answer is that there was a push for the American public to prioritise religious and family values, encouraging men to spend more time at home instead of drinking, gambling, and participating in other nefarious activities. The organisations often credited for leading the way to prohibition are the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). It is true that these groups actively called for temperance, but there were far more ingredients at play in this Prohibition cocktail.
Prohibition was the result of religious fervour, sociocultural concerns regarding the nuclear American family, but also racism and xenophobia amplified by post-World War I sentiments, and a highly competitive capitalist economy. As complex and nuanced as some of these reasons are, one simple detail about the prohibition era is that it was a long time coming. The first wave of the Temperance movement started in the 1820s, nearly a century before the 18th Amendment came to be.
And yet, even after a hundred years of active teetotalism, the practice or promotion of total abstinence from alcoholic drinks, one thing the 18th Amendment didn’t ban was alcohol consumption itself.
With that in mind, let’s begin our discussion of American crime fiction over an imaginary bottle of red…
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Hello, Caroline. Welcome to your own podcast. How are you today?
Caroline: Hello, Leandra. Thank you very much for having me.
Leandra: It’s wonderful to have you. As we begin this discussion, I want to say that I do not know what I’m doing, but I’m going to do my best as an interviewer and start with some obvious leading questions. My first question is, what background knowledge do you have about prohibition, and what experience do you have with American crime fiction in general?
Caroline: I have almost no background knowledge about prohibition. It’s not something that was ever covered in the history I studied at school, so my entire awareness of it is from pop culture and, let’s be honest, mostly The Great Gatsby. Beyond that, I don’t really know much about it.
In terms of American crime fiction, I am similarly very much in the shallow end of the pool. I’ve read a couple of Golden Age era American crime novels, mostly in connection to the podcast. So we did a Frances Crane novel as a Shedunnit book club book, I think last year, possibly the year before. And I also just read The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett for the latest Green Penguin book club episode. But that is about it.
Leandra: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and as someone who grew up in American culture, in the American educational system, I have to say, I also realised I didn’t know as much about prohibition as I probably should have, so we’re going to be learning together as we go through this process, while using American crime fiction as a bit of a crutch.
I am so glad that you used The Thin Man as an example, and it definitely wasn’t planned on my part. To give some background, The Thin Man, it’s by Dashiell Hammett, and it was originally published in 1934. Now if we remember, prohibition ended in 1933, so technically this book was published after prohibition, but it was likely written during it, and it’s certainly set during it as well. I am referencing this book especially because I know that you, Caroline, and your guest, CriminOlly, when discussing The Thin Man for the Green Penguin episode, I know that you were especially interested in the first line, and I’ll read it aloud to you just to give some memory to it.
“I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me.”
Now what struck you about this first opening line?
Caroline: It definitely had that feel to me of just being an instantly iconic opening line of a book. I think you can tell when you read, especially books from, 80, 90, 100 years plus ago, you can hear the cadence of sentences that people are going to quote a lot or that people are really going to rate. And this just immediately felt like one of those to me.
And then the other thing I liked about it was all of the things that immediately place it so specifically in its era and its setting. So he’s leaning against the bar in a speakeasy. Even to someone like me, I know what speakeasies are and where they were most likely located and when.
On 52nd Street, that’s probably Manhattan in New York City. Waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping. Ah, so it’s Christmas or nearly Christmas. When a girl got up from a table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. Oh, so this bar is busy and it has tables. It’s not just like a counter at the wall kind of thing. This is a bustling, thriving place, this speakeasy, not just some grimey dive.
Also it’s in the first person, which is just immediately always intriguing. Who is the I, who is telling us this? All of those things work together, I think, to make it a really good opening line to a book, and one that very closely speaks to its time and its place.
Leandra: I fully agree, and what’s really interesting is the easiness of the mentioning of being at a bar, how easy it is to mention a speakeasy and not worry that this narrator is going to be judged or looked down upon for being a part of this culture. And I think that speaks to the fact that by the end of prohibition, everyone was very tired of it, and no one was looking down upon people who were participating in drinking alcohol, going to these technically illegal establishments, and also, this character is described as a family man, going to Christmas shopping, Nora, he has a significant other, he must be good enough to have a romantic partner of some sort, and like you said, he’s in a busy place, so it’s not just him, there is community in this participation of drinking alcohol during a time when alcohol was illegal to distribute or make. And now, the funny thing is this original first line feels very natural, the mention of a speakeasy. But I will say that there are times where the mention of alcohol disrupts the scenes. So in this same setting, he begins this discussion, our narrator, Nick Charles, with a young woman named Dorothy.
And so if we look at the next section that I have provided you, I would like you to read aloud the highlighted section. And again, for some background, he’s simply discussing the relationship that he has with this woman, Dorothy, what their connection is, and it happens to be her father. And they’re asking one another about him.
Caroline: So Nick starts:
“[…]How is your father?”
She laughed. “I was going to ask you. Mamma divorced him, you know, and we never hear from him — except when he gets in the newspapers now and then with some of his carryings on. Don’t you ever see him?
My glass was empty. I asked her what she would have to drink, she said Scotch and soda.
I ordered two of them and said: “No, I’ve been living in San Francisco.”
Leandra: As you might notice, there is a normal flow of conversation. One is asked about her father, she responds saying she’s not sure, asking if Nick has seen him, and you would assume he would answer her right away, but no, there is long pause.
He notices that his drink is empty, and then he proceeds to obviously reach out to the bartender, order two more drinks, they receive them, and then he finally says, “No, I’ve been living in San Francisco”. In any normal situation, I would be like, Why are you waiting so long? Answer me before we get another drink.
And I think that it’s moments like these where the alcohol takes the priority. Even if you’re not necessarily noticing it and you’re not analysing a text like we are right now, I think there are these nuanced elements that show why alcohol might be at the forefront of our thoughts while we’re reading these texts published in, say, prohibition era or just after it.
I don’t know if you got that impression as well or if it just felt like a bombardment throughout the entire book, the mentioning of drinking scotch and soda and living through a perpetual hangover.
Caroline: It is very present in the book. It’s impossible not to notice it how much the characters drink. I do think that Nick in particular uses his drinking as an avoidance tactic. I think you see it repeatedly through the book that he messes around with glasses and bottles and asks people to fetch him a drink from the other side of the room and so on when he doesn’t want to answer their questions.
So I think that’s possibly what’s happening here is that he doesn’t have good news for Dorothy. So he’s just delaying. It also feels oddly cinematic to me and knowing that this book would then almost immediately become a film as well. It almost feels like stage directions, like the brooding detective’s leaning on the bar, he fiddles with the drinks, he gets more drinks, he slides over to her, then he answers her question.
It feels almost like you’re seeing the written out version of something that you’re only supposed to see visually. All of that I think is very much tied into my vision of prohibition as being something from old black and white movies rather than real life.
Leandra: Yeah, and that’s really interesting for you to mention it, especially because we know that hardboiled detective fiction was among the many influences for film noir. We have a lot of film noir that is actually simply adaptations from hardboiled detective fiction that was popular during the time, and maybe that was part of the appeal, the feeling that, oh, I could easily make a script out of this because we are provided with these props already. I think that’s a lot of what’s going on here, too. And also a lot of times, I feel as though the characters use it for humour. And we’re meant to be in on the joke, and the question is, are we in on the joke?
Would people of this time also be laughing along with Nick and Nora and the others? Or would they be a bit concerned? Is it meant to be a part of this character development in hardboiled detective fiction? We usually see a character, a detective, and he is deemed a broken man cum hero.
I think it’s more prevalent in film noir than it is in actual books. But we see a man down on his luck. He’s not at the top of his game. Obviously, Nick, he is a retired private detective, and he’s also very dependent on his wife’s wealth. So some of those elements can add to the effect of why he also may be a bit dependent on alcohol.
And the question is, did the author mean that or not? I guess we don’t know, but I’ve provided another bit of dialogue to demonstrate the humour that may or may not be meant to be there. So in chapter two, just one chapter later, we have Nick in a massive hangover. He is waking up in bed and Nora is there to discuss the certain happenings involving the killing of this woman and whether Wynant, the man that they were looking for the other night, is a part of this.
And so Nora wants to be on task. She wants to know information. She wants to talk about this case. Meanwhile, we have Nick, who has one other thing on his mind. Can you read aloud the first line of dialogue that’s highlighted?
Caroline: “Yes. How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?
Leandra: Yeah, so he answers her question, do you know her? And then he says, yeah actually so can we get that drink? And then later on, she ignores him. She says, okay, what’s she like, completely doesn’t address his request. And she asks him another question: “She lived with him?” And we have Nick answering, and again, we get a gist of what he actually wants.
Caroline: “Yes, I want a drink, please. That is, it was like that when I knew them.” “Why don’t you have some breakfast first? Was she in love with him or was it just business?” “I don’t know. It’s too early for breakfast.”
Leandra: So it’s too early for breakfast, but it’s not too…
Caroline: Not too early for drinks, yeah.
Leandra: Right? And so there’s this question of, would the audience be laughing along with him? Would they find this charming? And I think that a lot of modern readers are concerned. They would not like to hear someone request this in the morning. They’d be asking if you actually need some help, do you need someone to talk to? But instead, I think that at this point, we see a dramatisation of a relationship with alcohol due to the fact that we’re in the end of the prohibition era.
So I think it explains a lot as to why Nick is this supposedly likable character. He’s very relaxed. He has a lot of people interacting with him, reaching out to him. They trust him to get the job done. And yet, on the page, he’s constantly thinking about alcohol. I think there’s a strange dichotomy that we see in detective fiction in America at this time, where they’re very likable characters, they’re very funny.
And that must be tied to the fact that they also know how to have a good time and they aren’t worried about this effect of alcohol like the government is or uptight people who are worried about your health or your cultural influence on the nuclear family. So I just wanted to highlight that a little bit.
And actually, Denise Mina, a Scottish writer, wrote a 2023 introduction to one of the newest editions published by Black Lizard, and I thought it was really interesting. She doesn’t have all of the information correct. Which also speaks to the fact that there isn’t much known about prohibition beyond the fact that it’s associated with alcohol.
And I think a lot of us assume that alcohol itself, the consumption, was banned and that’s not correct. So I’ll go ahead and read it:
“Prohibition ended in 1933, but the book is set during Christmas 1932, when the law still forbade the sale or consumption of alcohol…”
Now, that is where we have this misconception.
Caroline: Not the consumption of alcohol, but the sale, yeah.
Leandra: Yeah, so Denise Mina is correct in that first line but in the second, the latter half, consumption of alcohol is not actually illegal. But the sentiment that I think is actually super accurate is towards the bottom of her discussion of prohibition in relation to this novel, is that: “Neither of them blacks out and kicks the dog or each other. No one, literally no one, is sick all over a bed or committed to a sanatorium for a series of vitamin injections to reverse their scurvy. It is a representation of drinking that would only make sense to a lifelong teetotaler. Living in a dry state or an alcoholic in profound denial, which perfectly sums up American attitudes to alcohol in 1934.”
And I actually think that’s quite correct. It’s glamourising, the idea of alcohol from the perspective of it never having any adverse effects. And we know that’s not accurate.
And actually, in a lot of detective fiction, we, especially in the United States, we see it being glamourised. We see it as this positive, easy relationship that no one really has to be worried about, that the person is in control as they go on benders or have a great time out and try to solve a murder while they do it.
But there are some depictions that show the negative light of alcohol consumption during this time or after prohibition as well. So a couple examples that I found include The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown. This was published in 1947, so quite some time after prohibition ended, about two decades nearly.
And this one actually demonises the overconsumption of alcohol. The first couple chapters, yeah, the son is the main character, and he is searching for his father in the house. His sister is asleep, he goes to his mother’s room, she’s passed out drunk, and he realises that his father has likely not come home because he’s still off on his own bender.
And we learn that his father actually is murdered that night, and there is this assumption that it must be related to the fact that he went on a bender, maybe he interacted with the wrong people, that the father, the murdered victim is at fault in this sense, and it actually ends up being the son and his uncle who work to find justice for this man who is just deemed a drunk.
We also see it with Deadline at Dawn by Cornell Woolrich. Now, this one depicts the mean streets of New York City, and the characters oftentimes, to find themselves some moments of peace, lean on drink because they are depressed and all they want to do is get out of the city. And, of course, again, they get wrapped up in a murder.
By the end of the novel, the goal is for them to get on a bus to get away from the city, to get away from these negative influences that include alcohol and organised crime, because that’s another element that goes into American detective fiction. It’s very much set in urban settings and with that come the temptations that include speakeasies and the like.
So one other example that we will be digging into a little bit more deeply is The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen. Now this one was also published during prohibition. This one is the debut novel by Ellery Queen, who is actually a duo of cousin writers, and the premise here is Monte Field, a well known crooked lawyer, emphasis on the fact that he is this negative influence on society, is poisoned during a performance at the Roman Theater in New York City.
He’s found dead at a theatrical production called Gunplay, of all things. At the beginning of the novel, we’re thinking, someone’s gonna get shot. Something’s gonna happen with some type of gun and there might be some humour in the fact that the character’s actually poisoned.
And initially, a doctor within the audience is first on the scene, and he assumes it’s heart failure, but upon further inspection, he realises that something else might be at play. Caroline, if you could read that first section. I know it’s quite a long one, but I think it’s worth it.
Caroline: “In the semidark and under these conditions I could not at first discern any abnormal sign of death. From the construction of the facial muscles, I thought that it was a simple case of heart failure, but on closer examination I noticed that blueness of the face— it’s quite clear in this light, isn’t it? That combined with the alcoholic odour from the mouth seems to point to some form of alcoholic poisoning. Of one thing I can assure you— this man did not die of a gunshot wound or a stab. I naturally made sure of that at once. I even examined his neck— you see I loosened the collar— to make sure it was not strangulation.”
“I see.” The Inspector smiled, “Thank you very much. Doctor. Oh, by the way,” he added, as Dr. Stuttgard with a muttered word turned aside, “do you think this man might have died from the effects of wood alcohol?”
Dr. Stuttgard answered promptly. “Impossible,” he said. “It was something much more powerful and quick-acting.”
Now I have to ask, what is wood alcohol?
Leandra: I’m so glad you asked, Caroline. Wood alcohol was a popular bootleg item, and it was very dangerous, actually. Much of it is that it contained methanol, and so a lot of times when people would be drinking this, they would immediately have nausea, dizziness.
They would think that they would actually recover at times, and later on they would actually succumb and die from it. There is an example in 1926 in New York City. We had 1,200 people become sick by poisonous alcohol and 400 died. So this became a really crucial and important public health issue, trying to warn people against the wood alcohol and there are actually some other really scary ingredients that other bootleggers would use and I provided you with a small passage to read aloud and prepare yourself for some ingredients.
Caroline: “The period’s illicit liquor manufacturers found that by adding some questionable ingredients, they could simulate certain types of beverages they had enjoyed before prohibition, or create entirely new flavours. Some bootleggers added dead rats to their moonshine to make their alcohol taste like bourbon. Others used tar and oil from trees to replace gin and scotch.”
Ugh, that’s disgusting. Why would you deliberately put dead rats in things? It’s bad enough if it happens by accident.
Leandra: Exactly. A company would honestly probably lose millions of dollars to lawsuits if this were ever the case, whereas now, it being illegal, the black market flourished with these types of products, and it leads to the question of, is regulation with lawful intent actually the right way to go?
We see that a lot of times with certain illicit drugs as well. This idea of, is it better to have it legal but also regulated by the government, or do we keep it illegal? And in that case, we have no idea what kind of ingredients are being placed in these things, and we saw that during prohibition with these very terrifying items that I’m sure the consumers had no idea this was actually the product that they were getting. They just wanted to possibly have some fun.
Caroline: Yeah, no one was saying, bring me the dead rat stuff, I really like that one. No,
Leandra: Yeah, they’re like, that’s my favorite flavour.
Caroline: It was probably the same colour as the whiskey they used to drink or something. But no, obviously highly dangerous.
Leandra: So we obviously see Ellery Queen taking that into effect as they’re discussing the death of this character Field and whether it was by his own accidental intentions of getting drunk and didn’t realise that he was drinking bad alcohol, or what we realise is actually that he was poisoned. And there are numerous other examples within this text of the characters discussing the idea of whether this was good alcohol or alcohol that obviously ended up making him sick.
So for one occasion, we have Inspector Queen speaking back and forth with the toxicologist, Prouty, and one thing that’s confirmed is that with the whiskey you get nowadays, most of it smells etherised, because there’s also this ether of methanol, and then later on, there is this confirmation of after analysis of the whiskey, Prouty confirms whether the whiskey is good or bad.
And I’ll go ahead and read aloud this response from him after Queen asks” “What did you get from your analysis of the whiskey?” Oh, Prouty sobered instantly. “The whisky in the flask was as fine as any I’ve ever tested— and I’ve been doing nothing but testing booze for years now […]” Note, because of prohibition, likely he has to do this a lot.
“[…] It was the poison in the liquor on his breath that made me think at first that Field had drunk rotten booze. The Scotch and rye that you sent me in bottles from Field’s apartment were also of the very highest quality. Probably the flask s contents came from the same place as the bottled stuff. In fact, I should say that both samples were imported goods. I haven’t come across domestic liquor of that caliber ever since the war— that is, except for the pre-war stuff that was stored away… ”
We’re getting a really great picture of the fact that in late prohibition, it was really rare to see domestic liquor exist that was obviously purchased prior to prohibition. People were hoarding everything.
As you may have noticed in my introduction that 40 gallon of wine that was unfortunately wasted onto the street, the fact that we also see people who were hoarding liquor by 1 dollar a bottle prices, people were trying to prepare because they weren’t sure how long this was going to last.
And clearly, some nine years later in 1929, following this novel it was very scarce. And so the idea that this was actually really good quality, they’re like, it must be imported. It cannot be produced in the United States. So I found that really fascinating that this novel featured it, but we also never see the mention of prohibition. We never see the mention of the 18th Amendment or the temperance movement. Those terms weren’t used by Ellery Queen, and I actually personally find that pretty fascinating because you have to read between the lines to understand why this is the case, why they’re talking about liquor and alcohol in this way.
Maybe during this time, obviously, they’d know exactly why. If you’re reading this book in 1929, you know why these things are happening, why they’re looking into this, but what’s fascinating is coming from, say, a 2024 perspective, you might not notice it as much that what they’re trying to suggest is that, hey, prohibition has screwed things up.
Caroline: That’s something I’ve noticed in a lot of detective fiction that is published during what we now think of as an important historical event. Another really good example of this is stuff published in the early years of the second world war, especially in Britain, where it was very far from clear that Germany was not going to win the war.
In fact, it very much looked like that was gonna be the case. And so you get whole novels where no one really mentions the word “war”, but just the way that the characters are acting and things like they’re doing blackouts and there’s rationing and all this kind of stuff, you know that they are living during the war.
But of course when you are writing a book in 1940 for consumption in 1941 you didn’t need to tell anyone there was a war going on. Everyone thought about it all the time. And I’m imagining a similar effect here, where of course it was obvious why the whisky might be adulterated or why someone might be hoarding booze from before the First World War. Of course, everyone knows that. No need to spell it out.
Leandra: Right, and this is actually something that’s really relevant to the fact that it is very recent for them. It’s only been about 10 years since, one, World War I ended, and then suddenly we were introduced to the idea of prohibition. That was something that I was really shocked by. I feel like we knew that it was one followed the other, but they really are quite significantly because armistice was signed in November 1918. And then we have the passing of the 18th Amendment in January 1919. It only came into effect in 1920, giving everyone a year to stockpile, have their last sip of wine, potentially. But it’s really fascinating how connected they are.
So, also the idea of all of these men coming back from the war. Obviously, it’s a different scenario for American soldiers versus say those in Europe and the UK, but they’re coming back from certain traumatic events and they realise that the United States that they left is very different or at least preparing to be very different. So it is interesting to look on that perspective.
But what’s also interesting is how creative some of these people get, because yes, there’s bootlegging, and there are speakeasies that Americans are leaning on as far as trying to get their alcohol consumption, but they also had some legal options that they took advantage of that we see in American detective fiction as well.
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And that is where we enter into the transatlantic cruise mysteries. So those were actually not super popular. You don’t see a million of them, but I’ve actually found myself really enjoying those. A couple examples that I read include Murder on ‘B’ Deck by Vincent Starrett. Also published in 1929, and also Obelists at Sea by C. Daly King, published in 1932. So both of these were firmly published, definitely firmly written, during prohibition. And it led me to wonder, what is going on? Because we also see characters drinking alcohol in these two books, but they’re on a cruise making their way across the ocean.
Caroline: Is this once you’re in international waters, no rules apply?
Leandra: Yes, exactly. Smart cookie that you are, Caroline.
Just imagine the number of people who are saying I’ve never been on a cruise. I’ve never traveled to another country. This is the perfect time. Let me do this.
Now what’s really funny is that there was a period before the boat took off, obviously before we left the domestic that you still had to be very sneaky. And we see that in Murder on ‘B’ Deck. So there is another small excerpt that I’ve provided you, Caroline.
And to give some context, this book actually follows a writer, Dunstan Mollock, and he only has the intention of seeing off his friends, his sister and her husband, and that was something that was really popular, actually, during this time as well. In preparation for these transatlantic cruises, they would usually leave at midnight.
When the boat was getting ready to go, people would go on board who were not ticket holders, and celebrate doing a bit of a send off however many hours prior to it, and then as soon as the boat was starting to get ready to leave. They would send everyone else off who weren’t ticket holders back on to shore so they could leave.
And what would really happen is people would celebrate and drink alcohol while they were hiding in their little rooms. And Dunstan Mollock, he is late. He’s trying to get there to the celebration in time. And this is the scene in which he finally arrives on the boat and searches for his sister and brother-in-law’s room where they are doing some illegal activity or at least partaking in the results of having done some type of illegal activity and acquiring said contraband.
So if you would read that for me.
Caroline: “Reaching the gangplank, he mounted rapidly to the first deck, dodged another Bill without being seen, traversed two crowded promenades and stairways, and at length discreetly knocked upon the panels of a stateroom numbered 67, behind which a significant cork had just popped.
At the interruption, four men and three women crowded in the room cocked their heads sideways. The brother-in-law of the late comer paused, his thumb in the throat of a bottle. “That you, Duns?” He called, and opened the door with his free hand.
Leandra: And so with this scene, you can almost feel the tension of these four men, three women getting excited. They just had the cork pop. They’re going to have some champagne. And then they hear this knock on the door and their heads just turn, head cocked, wondering. And then eventually they end up confirming that, oh, it’s fine.
It’s just Duns, Dunstan, who they were anticipating arriving. And it shows this kind of act of casualness. They’re having fun, but then immediately any type of danger of being discovered, everyone’s a bit more on edge, especially because this idea of champagne, too, real champagne, is likely deemed something that was imported. If anything, they were partaking in the illegal purchase of alcohol at the time.
Caroline: I have a question. So it is illegal to obviously sell, manufacture, purchase alcohol. It’s not illegal to drink it. So if it had been a policeman knocking on the door, they’re not actually doing anything illegal in the room, right? They’re just drinking some champagne. And if they maintain I just found it on the street, officer. What happens? How can you be prosecuted?
Leandra: Plausible deniability. Yep. I suppose that’s probably what a lot of people did, and a lot of police officers probably just were like, fine, okay. And we also see that in a lot of detective fiction, too, where the police officer will gladly partake in certain alcohol, where maybe they’re coming to interview or discuss things with the private detective that they’re consulting with, they’ll offer them a drink, no one’s questioning where that alcohol came from, they’re just like it’s in your home, so we’re going to assume.
So I’m sure there were a lot of instances where people said, no, I’ve been saving this for years. I guess the question would be, yeah, if there’s a year on the bottle. And then they would have to be a bit more creative, as you said, I found this randomly on the street. I don’t know what you mean, officer. Didn’t want to waste it.
So there probably were moments like that. And I think that also speaks to the fact why speakeasies and other establishments, while the police did obviously investigate those and fine people, jail them at times upwards of six months, depending on the offence, mostly, It was deemed this agreed upon silent activity that everyone was really doing it.
We even see actually a lot of politicians, and I also wonder if that, among other things, is linked to why we see a lot of corruption being depicted in this time. Not only are people drinking alcohol and we’re just casually accepting the fact that speakeasies exist, but we see a lot of criticism in hardboiled detective fiction especially with corruption of establishment, institutions, corporations being corrupt as well.
And it’s because in my opinion, they knew that everyone was doing this, and yet, depending on who you knew, you were more likely to get away with it. I think that adds to the dark hilarity of including it here because we knew it was illegal and everyone just was by the end very tired of prohibition, We also continue to see other examples of this mention of bootleg scotch in that book as well, but what’s quite funny is these mentions slowly dissipate.
As soon as they are officially on their voyage and the bar is open, people are enjoying themselves in the smoke room and everything to that effect, but it really is dependent on how close you are.
Six miles offshore was the time when the bar could open, passengers could drink their way to Europe and have a great time. And so we see a lot of Americans enjoying the fact that they can go there. It’s just funny to think that they were doing it, yes, to see the sights, but also to enjoy a glass of wine without fear of any type of fine.
Speaking of which, though, we’ve talked a lot about the humour used in, American detective fiction surrounding alcohol, the casualness, but when it comes to the reader as consumer, especially nowadays, we do have this criticism, specifically in hardboiled detective fiction, but also in American crime fiction that mirrors the Golden Age style, that we have a lot of, to put bluntly, alcoholic detectives.
And it can be very frustrating for readers to be able to separate the consumption of alcohol to a disconcerting degree and someone who is trying to save lives, who’s trying to bring justice. And how do we balance that? We obviously saw that with Nick Charles in The Thin Man, but I know that an author that I thoroughly enjoy, but does receive criticism: Craig Rice.
So that is the pseudonym for Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig. And she wrote the John J. Malone series, and he is basically an alcoholic who brings criminals to justice, while also being a defence lawyer, defending criminals as well. And he, along with his two, I suppose we could call assistants, his companions, Jake Justus and Helene Brand, are known for going on benders as they’re trying to free someone from jail who was wrongly accused or trying to prevent another murder from happening. So they’re going on benders, they’re driving and drinking at the same time. It’s very much a normal thing throughout the entire series and I know that a lot of people have issues with that.
Another example that I’ve seen, and I had issues with this book for different reasons, but Headed for a Hearse by Jonathan Latimer, the main character, the detective, William Crane, he is actually brought in to Chicago from New York City, specifically to save this one man’s life who’s on death row.
He only has a week to live. He literally has been framed for this crime and he’s wasting away. We even get chapters in which we see this man starting to go insane, wondering about if he’s actually going to die or not. So it is a very hard hitting and dramatic and tense type of book. Meanwhile, our detective, William Crane…This setting is from a Saturday to a Saturday.
So Thursday morning, two days, about 48 hours before this man is meant to die of an execution, Crane wakes up with a horrible hangover because of a mix of bourbon, absinthe, and gin. And apparently though, Friday night, so again, the night before this man is meant to be executed, his detective very proudly says that he has solved the crime, and it’s all thanks to the hangover.
So he ends up saying: “It puzzled me quite a bit, but I happened to solve the problem while I was enjoying a hangover. There’s nothing like a hangover for clear thinking.” And I think we would all disagree. That is actually the worst time for clear thinking.
And it’s this hilarity moment, but in reality, we’re really concerned. This is not someone that we should want to root for. And I do believe that these types of examples demonstrate why a lot of people veer away from American detective fiction sometimes. And it’s understandable.
But I also wonder if it’s linked to this uncomfortable link between American writers and alcoholism. So if you end up looking at this list of authors that I’ve provided you, Caroline, I know that you’ve probably recognised most of them, but I’m not sure if you know that all of them had a horrible relationship with alcohol.
Caroline: Yeah, so we have Craig Rice, S.S. Van Dine, Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cornell Woolwich, and Dashiell Hammett. I did know, just because of the research I did for The Thin Man episode, I did know that Dashiell Hammett was not a well man for probably a few decades of his life, if not more, and I did know a bit about Fitzgerald as well, but so what links all these people is their drinking problem, is it?
Leandra: Yes, and while F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the outliers, he’s not known as being a part of the crime fiction circuit, and Raymond Chandler, I believe, is actually British, but for a lot of his life, he was living in the US, and he’s deemed just like how John Dickson Carr is American, but he’s deemed British.
Caroline: He writes in the British tradition.
Leandra: Yeah, so that’s why I’ve lumped him in here, but all of these authors have been deemed by biographers and honestly self-proclaimed at times as having this really unhealthy relationship with alcohol.
Craig Rice was described by one book critic as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction. She wrote the binge and lived the hangover.” And Craig Rice was also known for having deteriorating health and really poor mental health as well. So she was an alcoholic but also attempted suicide twice. And so we understand that there is this strange, nuanced, and sad connection between her and her own characters and their own behavior, especially Helene Brand. There is this kind of subtle sadness within Helene Brand. And you have to dig deep to find it, but Craig Rice also suffered from deafness in one ear and blindness in one eye, and that was linked to her alcoholism as well, and she eventually did die of alcohol overdose and barbiturates.
Then S.S. Van Dine, he had a secret cocaine addiction. But he also had a heart condition that was exacerbated by excessive drinking. As we mentioned, Raymond Chandler was an alcoholic. He was actually sacked from his job as an LA oil tycoon, of all things, due to drink. And his deteriorating health led to his death via pneumonia, but we know it’s likely linked to his alcoholism. F. Scott Fitzgerald, we know, struggled with alcoholism. Cornell Woolrich, actually, he had quite a sad life as well. I know that we’ve taken a turn in this discussion, but in his sixties his eyesight was failing. He was described as being lonely. He also has been described as potentially being gay.
And so a lot of biographers have analysed his life and viewed him as a bit of a self-hating gay man, and that is linked to his relationship. And he was an alcoholic, a diabetic. He also likely neglected his own health because of these elements, but he ended up having gangrene in the foot and had to have it amputated.
And there’s these very depressing stories described about these authors. And so we do wonder, how is this related? Especially because a lot of these writers I’ve mentioned, some of them, of course, were writing during the Prohibition era, but quite a few of them didn’t get their start until just after or right before, and so there is this kind wonder if this use of alcohol as a prop, these discussions of overdrinking with characters is actually more of a result of post prohibition.
Things that we see in the 1930s, in the 1940s, after prohibition ended especially because we actually don’t see too many depictions at least as, I suppose, overtly in the beginning of say like the 1920s. We also really have our golden age / hardboiled detective fiction high in the 30s and 40s as well.
I know that the golden age in the British variety tends to be deemed the 20s and 30s, but in reality detective fiction in the United States reached its heights in the 30s and 40s, in my opinion. So there is this kind of discussion of, is it really depicting what life was like in Prohibition? Or are these characters, or are these authors, reflecting upon a time or predicting how alcohol would be consumed later on once the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment.
Caroline: Something that’s really interesting to me with all this is that I think the stereotype of the alcoholic detective is quite well established through to modern crime fiction. But I think the crucial difference from what you’re describing from the prohibition and immediately post prohibition era, is that those modern detectives who drink heavily and have tough family lives and all this, it’s inextricably linked to their pursuit of justice. It’s, oh, I drink because the world is so hard and I’m so cynical about it. It’s connected into their job, where it seems like, especially what you were describing with for instance, the death row novel it seemed like the person was trying to claim the opposite, that no, drinking makes me better at solving crime.
I see no reason why those two things can’t work perfectly in harmony. Not drinking because of misery, drinking for fun alongside your serious work. So yeah, I think that’s really interesting and that actually the sort of sadness is more in the writers than in their characters.
Leandra: Yeah. And so I feel as though sometimes we are suggesting that this small sample size is indicative of what all of American culture was like and everything to that effect. In reality, I actually am wondering if we just had a strange phenomenon in which just a lot of people who are in entertainment also do struggle with, drug use and alcohol historically.
It’s been known for something like that. That’s a fascinating connection to find and realise that when we’re looking at it from a modern perspective, we want to separate the author from their work, but in reality, a lot of times authors write their own lives into their work. And I fully agree with you on the sense where almost we can condone the use of alcohol as a medicinal quality for the horrors and the stress that these detectives have because they are working in a system that’s acting against them because again, we’re seeing this world as corrupt, as dark, as people putting their self interests ahead of others.
We can’t trust our politicians. We can’t trust the police because they’re likely on the payroll of someone else who’s trying to hide certain nefarious activities. And so we may have to actually condone and understand why a detective treats themselves at the end of the night with a scotch and soda after having to deal with the horror that they’ve faced.
But I do want to steer us to our final discussion. And that is how we see prohibition in British crime fiction. So we’ve talked a lot about the effects that prohibition may or may not have had on detective fiction in the United States, and also whether or not it was actually depicted accurately, but it did find its influences in some British crime fiction.
The first example is actually John Dickson Carr, who I’ve already mentioned, in The Eight of Swords. This was published in 1934. So again, at the tail end, he was writing this likely during the end of Prohibition because Prohibition ended December 5th, 1933. And so only, what, two month turnaround by the time this book was published.
He ends up having his characters really reflecting on the poor Americans and what they have to deal with in this sad time of prohibition. So we have a couple characters referencing this, but the one that I really want to talk about is actually Dr. Gideon Fell.
He is this intelligent, wise detective. We’re meant to trust in him actually providing a good objective perspective. And he has given his own two cents about prohibition in the United States. I’ll go ahead and read this aloud.
“Thank you. Beer and tobacco, ma’am, are the twin warming pans of my declining years. Both have curious histories. To the first I have devoted an entire chapter of my work, The Drinking Customs of England from the Earliest Days. Do you know, for example, the first time that what is humorously called a prohibition law was ever in effect in history? Heh-Heh. It affords me amusement to think that our friends the Americans believed they had something new. The first prohibition law was enacted in Egypt by the Pharaoh Usermaatre, or Rameses the Great, about the year 4000 BC. It was an edict designed to prevent his subjects from getting sozzled on a species of barley beer and manufacturing whoopee in the streets of Thebes. Prohibitionists asserted that the next generation would never know the taste of the villainous stuff. Ha, hum, alas. The law failed, and was revoked.”
So with this kind of discussion, John Dickson Carr is obviously not a prohibitionist. He is definitely not for that at all. And I recall reading this novel and thinking, wow, he’s very happy to be in the UK because a lot of characters are enjoying themselves, having a cocktail.
There is actually relief in this narrative in especially one character who’s English. He comes from New York City, a time just before the crime really gets going. And he’s just oh, my poor friends who are having to make themselves some fake gin with this weird recipe. And so it’s very funny to see John Dickson Carr speaking from an American perspective and still feeling the need to, yeah, input this in his British narrative, speaking to an audience of mostly British people.
Yes, his books were being published in America as well, but he was predominantly, at the time, especially in publishing this, was speaking to a British audience about American prohibition so he just couldn’t help himself.
Caroline: There’s something quite smug about it, isn’t there? There’s something like, oh, I’m just going to enjoy my drink and think about all of those fools over there.
Leandra: Exactly, he’s really reflecting on his positive choices in leaving the United States, and he’s not wrong. He brings up Egypt, but also, Canada at the time was just ending recently their own prohibition while the U. S. was entering one. But we also see two other very important British authors who are discussing prohibition, and one of them was Agatha Christie.
Now, might you have an idea of what book was likely discussing this?
Caroline: Now this is going to show me up because I truly don’t have any idea. Which book is it?
Leandra: Good. That was all part of my plan. I did not provide Caroline with any notes about this. So this was actually found in Murder on the Orient Express. So it was originally published in 1934, right? Yeah. Now you’re like, oh, I should have known!
Caroline: No, I think doesn’t the word bootlegger almost appears in the book, doesn’t it?
Leandra: I actually don’t remember bootlegger, but you know what it is, speakeasy.
Caroline: Speakeasy. That’s it.
Leandra: Yeah, and so we had quite a few American characters in Murder on the Orient Express linked to the entire book’s A plot, but it was published in 1934, so clearly, Agatha Christie was also being influenced and aware of what was going on in the United States, and we have this towards the end of the narrative, the characters’ luggage is being searched through, trying to find clues, and we find that Mr. Hardman, one of the Americans in the group, it says that the contents in which his luggage had weren’t really nefarious, nothing was concerning the case, but he did have a strange amount of alcohol hidden within his suitcases.
So it says: “The contents of Mr. Hardman’s two grips were soon examined and passed. They contained perhaps an undue proportion of spirituous liquor. Mr. Hardman winked. It’s not often they search your grips at the frontiers, not if you fix the conductor. I handed out a wad of Turkish notes right away and there’s been no trouble so far.”
And so they ended up discussing how he planned on getting this alcohol to its final destination. And he says: “By the time I get to Paris, he said, what’s left over of this little lot will go into a bottle labeled hair wash. You are not a believer in prohibition, Monsieur Hardman, said Monsieur Bouk with a smile. Said Hardman, I can’t say prohibition has ever worried me any. Ah, said Monsieur Bouk, the speakeasy.
He pronounced the word with care, savoring it.”
So there are these discussions, this recognition of prohibition and obviously Agatha Christie again, leans on the humor, this idea of how this man would find a way to take advantage and bring liquor back with him in any form, or at least just enjoy it while he’s here.
And I found that very funny, especially because Agatha Christie was known as someone, we talk about a lot of authors who have partaken in alcohol and experienced alcoholism, but Agatha Christie is a great example of an author who really didn’t like the taste of alcohol, she didn’t partake in it, and yet it’s still mentioned in her books.
And so it just shows how profound of a movement it was. It didn’t just have its ripple effect in the United States, but we see it in the UK as well.
Caroline: I think she did go to several different places in the US during Prohibition though, right? On her world tour, the British Empire mission. I know they went to Canada and I think she sailed back from New York, I’m saying from memory.
Leandra: I think so too.
Caroline: She definitely will have just being around people in hotels and so on and heard and seen it. But yes, you’re right, her favourite drink, at least in later life, was a pint of fresh cream. So she was not into alcoholic beverages at all.
Leandra: Yeah, so I just think it’s really interesting that she of all people would acknowledge that, especially because she also wasn’t known as someone who really didn’t speak on politics too often in her books, at least to an extent where she recognised it. And yeah, I just, I thought that was really fascinating.
Now, before we wrap things up, because we have been talking for quite some time about American detective fiction and its relationship with speakeasies and bootleg gin. I wanted to pose a question to you, Caroline. Reflecting on all of these scenes, all of these examples, what are your thoughts about prohibition and its influence or its effects on American detective fiction?
Do you think that American fiction is a good example? Do you think that it actually mirrors what life was like during prohibition and after? What do you think that our relationship with alcohol ended up being in that time?
Caroline: I’m guessing that the detective fiction is highly sanitised and glamourised version, because I think as that one passage you read points out, actually being a heavy drinker or addicted to alcohol is an utterly miserable disease. It’s life ruining for both the person and people in their immediate circumstances, it’s really horrible.
So the sort of Nick and Nora from The Thin Man idea of knocking back a bottle of whiskey and then bouncing out of bed to go to a party and having a lovely time, it’s not like that. But I can absolutely see why people wanted to read that stuff at the time, why it probably made quite a dark time seem lighter. So yes, I think it is a fantasy would be my impression.
Leandra: Yeah, and you would definitely be right. And do you think prohibition was a success or a failure?
Caroline: I think clearly a failure just given how little it seemed to accomplish in terms of actually preventing the flow of alcohol through the country. And I presume it’s a very good example of what happens when you criminalise something, that it just, probably harms people in the lower echelons of society the most.
People higher up continue to make money from it, as they would have done when it was a legitimate trade. But it’s people who in a legitimate regulated industry could have been protected workers are instead having to turn to criminal activity to make their living. I presume it didn’t cause any decline in alcoholism or increase in family values or any of the other things that campaigners wanted. And instead it just created a horrible black market and a lot of unnecessary criminality.
Leandra: Yeah, and you know what, I think most people would agree with you, but statisticians and historians actually argue that to some extent, prohibition wasn’t necessarily a failure, as we would assume. So they’re comparing that with the amount of alcohol consumption that can be recorded pre prohibition days.
So obviously during prohibition, they really don’t have statistics as far as how much alcohol was being sold, produced, consumed, because it was illegal. No one was keeping track of that. But they do have the comparison of after the 21st amendment was ratified, repealing the 18th, allowing for all of these lovely manufacturers, brewers, wineries to come back into production opening their doors again.
And so comparing the statistics from pre prohibition days to post prohibition days, I believe it was approximately a 30 percent decline. As far as alcohol consumption being tallied. However, within a decade or two, the United States was back at its pre prohibition numbers which is also indicative of when we were seeing all of these American detective fiction writers really finding their voice and becoming really popularised because that brings us into the 40s, especially during a time when I think it was most heightened, where we were seeing the most produced books happening following these prolific writers, and so arguably, according to statistics, prohibition was a success, but I think that culturally, socially, as far as mental health goes as well we would all agree that it was not a success at all. And I think that we still see the American public probably experiencing ripple effects today, even.
But I would like to leave us off on an author who would actually believe that prohibition is great, and that is Arthur Conan Doyle. Apparently, in the New York Times on Friday, June 23rd, 1922, so at the beginning of Prohibition, an article ran that was called Conan Doyle Comes for Our Prohibition.
And the article reads, “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who will sail for England on the Adriatic tomorrow morning, said yesterday that he returned to England a convert to prohibition and will advocate it for England, although he cannot spare the time from his psychic work to engage in public meetings and active propaganda. In the interim he intends, however, to have a high wall and a glass of wine now and then, he said.”
That doesn’t necessarily relate to the idea of being for prohibition, but all right, Arthur, you go ahead. We have a quote from him and it says: “I go back a convert. I am a man who takes wine, but nonetheless I think this generation might do a noble thing to give up its comforts, if so doing will help save the next generation from the miseries resulting from drinking to excess.
There is little drinking here today, compared to what there used to be. Today, if you want liquor, you have to go and find it. Formerly, it came looking for you.”
Music
This episode of Shedunnit was researched and hosted by me, Leandra Griffith. My guest, Caroline Crampton, also helped with production. If you’d like to hear more of me talking about mysteries and books in general, you might like my YouTube channel, Leandra the TBR zero, and my Instagram of the same name — there are links to both in the episode description. Caroline, of course, you can normally find hosting Shedunnit, or writing her personal newsletter at carolinecrampton.com. Her new book, A Body Made of Glass, is currently available to order everywhere books are sold or borrowed.
You can find a full list of the books we mentioned in this episode at shedunnitshow.com/deathatthespeakeasy. We publish transcripts of every episode including this one; find them all at shedunnitshow.com/transcripts.
Shedunnit is edited by Euan McAleece. Production assistance from Leandra Griffith. Member support for the Shedunnit Book Club from CC McLoughlin.
Thanks for listening.
