Another book this week from The Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction 1900-1950 series, edited by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor. (See the entire list here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/84989.50_Classics_of_Crime_Fiction_1900_1950) In the series preface to Alarum and Excursion (Doubleday, 1944; Jarrolds, 1947) by Virginia Perdue, Barzun and Taylor talk about what a loss Virginia’s early death was to the crime fiction genre. She died only a few weeks after her 44th birthday, with five published novels to her credit. Her fourth book He Fell Down Dead (Doubleday, 1943) was the basis for a 1946 movie called Shadow of a Woman with Helmut Dantine, Andrea King, and William Prince. Her obituary in the Los Angeles Times states that she had recently sold the film rights to Alarum and Excursion, although I did not find a reference indicating that the movie was actually made.
Sources cite varying birth years and ages for Virginia and next to no biographical information. A couple of hours with Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com helped me fill in her background and established a solid birth date for her. I can say with confidence that Virginia Ruth Dunn was born in Minnesota on 2 December 1900, daughter of Howard H. and Eva (Roberts) Dunn. The Dunns were living in Albert Lea, Minnesota, at the time of the 1910 census. The family later relocated to Chicago, where Virginia met Byron Dukes Perdue of Nebraska, who was attending the University of Chicago Law School. They married in Chicago on 10 December 1921, a week after her 21st birthday. They relocated to Los Angeles when she became ill in her mid-20s and she died there on 23 February 1945. I am adding the genealogical sources at the end of this article.
The story in Alarum and Excursion is simple enough but the execution is outstanding. Nicholas Matheny is the wealthy owner of a successful oil company. He is also deeply patriotic; he and a German scientist who fled the Nazis developed a formula for synthetic fuel to replace increasingly scarce gasoline. He intends to hand the formula over the U.S. military without charge as his contribution to the war effort. Others around him are less willing to let go of a virtually priceless asset. Before he can go to Washington, his laboratory explodes and he suffers severe head injuries in the blast. He wakes up in a private sanitarium with an impaired memory. He attempts to piece together the events before and after the explosion and to coax back his memory while nearly everyone around him is convinced that he is no longer mentally capable.
Amnesia is a well-worn plot device. Patricia Wentworth used it at least five times in her Miss Silver series. It is a critical element in one of my favorite Gothic romances, The Red Castle Women (Doubleday, 1968) by Margaret Widdemer. Roger Ormerod used it effectively in A Death to Remember (Constable, 1986). But here Virginia Perdue writes as if she has first-hand experience. The wisps of events and conversations that appear at the fringes of his memory and disappear just as quickly are as vivid as Matheny’s growing frustration. She handles flashbacks like a pro.
Matheny’s doctor is unwilling let him go home, offering vague reasons. His much younger second wife wants him to stay there as well. In desperation he escapes from the sanitarium but he finds that people he relied on in the past no longer trust him.
Confused by the way people are treating him, distraught that the war effort doesn’t have his synthetic fuel, cautious of his porous memory, Matheny struggles to find copies of the formula while evading capture. It all comes together in a sudden startling resolution.
Isaac Anderson in the New York Times, 17 September 1944, says the narrative has “something of the impact of a Greek tragedy.” Anthony Boucher in the San Francisco Chronicle, 17 September 1944, calls it “a violent, moving novel …. [that builds] to a series of murders that evoke an almost Aristotelian sense of pity and terror.” The New Republic, 18 September 1944, calls the book “clever and exciting.”
Nancy Barr Mavity in the Oakland Tribune, 17 September 1944, raves about the story, saying “Virginia Perdue marches right up to the front of the platform as valedictorian of her class–the small but select class of mystery writers who appeal to the intelligence as well as tickle the nerves.” And: “…an ideal book with which to convert the reader who thinks detective stories are beneath him.”
In the Albuquerque Tribune of 29 September 1944, Dorothy B. Hughes calls it “a superlative mystery novel….By all means don’t miss it.” In her review of He Fell Down Dead, Hughescompared Virginia Perdue’s work to the best of Ethel Lina White.
John F. Norris reviewed Alarum and Excursion for his Friday’s Forgotten Book column in 2013. He concluded his glowing review with “And the last paragraph is one guaranteed to induce a gasp of awe in any reader.” See his entire commentary here: https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2013/05/ffb-alarum-and-excursion-virginia-perdue.html?m=1
From my simple reader’s perspective, the book was surprisingly immersive. I often find that I need a few pages to acclimate to the cadence and the tone of a much older book but not in this case. I was immediately swept along with the urgency of the story and Matheny’s predicament. After all, isn’t everyone a little afraid of being locked up somewhere? I was two-thirds through the book and the clock said 1:30 a.m. before I made myself stop for the night. As for the ending, it is simply stunning.
It’s really unfortunate that this author is not better known. She was familiar enough during her lifetime that newspapers across the country picked up her death notice from the Associated Press wire. Her earlier books in Barzun and Taylor’s opinion have not aged well but they thought highly of this particular title. Fortunately there are Rue Morgue reprint copies aplenty in the secondary market. Recommended to fans of wartime crime fiction, creatively conceived mysteries, and noir.
RESEARCH SOURCES
Few things make me happier than the opportunity to dust off my genealogical skills. As soon as I saw the month and day of Virginia Dunn Perdue’s birth, I understood why the birth year is stated inaccurately so often. The later in the year the birth occurs, the more likely it is that an individual’s birth year will be misstated somewhere. With a December birthday, it’s almost guaranteed.
Here’s the entry for Virginia’s birth from the Minnesota, U.S., Births and Christenings Index, 1840-1980. No name for the child but the parents’ names match the 1910 census record, the place matches the census record, the gender is correct, and the day and month match the death certificate. The 1910 census also states that Eva Dunn had two children, both of which are named in the census.
his entry from the Minnesota Historical Society gives the relevant birth certificate number.
See the following fragment of the 1910 Federal census that states Virginia was 9 years old on April 30, 1910. With a December birth date, as given on her death certificate, she was born in 1900.
1910 Federal Census, Minnesota, Freeborn County, City of Albert Lea, enumerated on 30 April 1910
From the Cook County, Illinois, marriage indexes
Her wedding announcement gives her middle name.
The Albert Lea Tribune, 24 December 1921
The wedding announcement in Byron’s home state provides more details about him.
Lincoln Journal Star, 21 January 1922
In the 1930 Federal census Virginia and Byron are living at 2425 ½ Earl Street in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Note her age is 29 on the day the census was taken, 16 April 1930.
In the 1940 Federal census Virginia is divorced and her mother Eva is living with her in the same house where Virginia and Byron lived. She shaved a few years off her age. She states she worked 50 hours a week as a writer but that she has no income.
She participated in the Los Angeles Public Library Book Festival in November 1943. Leslie Charteris was on the same panel.
The Tidings (Los Angeles), 12 November 1943
Los Angeles Times, 24 February 1945
The original complete death certificate is not available on Ancestry.com. I believe that whoever was collecting the information for the certificate asked how old she was, her mother said 44, the data collector subtracted 44 from 1945 and entered 1901 on the form, not considering that December birthday.
Death certificate summary from the California Death Index, 1940-1997