Aleister Crowley wrote detective stories.
Some years ago, I read Aleister Crowley's novel
Moonchild, not because I was a disciple of magic(k), but because I saw it on a list of recommended fantasy. It's not bad. I give it a B+.
Lately, I've been reading
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, and it mentions that Crowley wrote a series of detective stories featuring an important character from the novel, Simon Iff. So I did a bit of Googling, and some good citizens have posted most of them to the Web; see
here and
here. Beware, they are not listed in internal chronological order on either site, and the later ones do contain spoilers to the earlier ones. My guess is that the first two are "What's in a Name" and "The Pasquaney Puzzle."
I've been finding them interesting. Wikipedia says they were written in 1919. Crowley, of course, was considered a great radical for his time and place. Simon Iff, portrayed as a wise old man, likes cocaine and hashish. He approves of prostitutes and premarital sex. Also, he doesn't spell it out, but it is clear from the context that Crowley thought the racism in the United States' was horrible.
On the other hand, nowadays Crowley would be considered horribly anti-Semitic and sexist. There are harsh little cracks about Jews sprinkled throughout the stories I've read so far, and Simon Iff likes his women to be young, pretty, and respectful. Older women are almost always described negatively,
hag being a typical term for them.
The Simon Iff tales have other flaws. Some of the solutions to the mysteries are absurd. Simon occasionally uses Latin, which most contemporary readers, including me, can't follow. Some of the slang is so old that it is baffling. I suspect that contemporary readers won't find some of the motivations of the characters realistic.
Crowley, though, was a true wit. His send-ups of excessive Christians, especially, are still funny. The off-color puns aren't mistakes. If something can be read as a double entendre, one should do so.
If you are going to read them, here are some hints. A basic knowledge of Freudianism will help. Wikipedia should be enough to get you up to speed there. Assume all straight, thin objects are meant to be phallic symbols and all cup shaped objects are meant to be vaginal symbols. If the dialog suddenly seems to turn digressive, assume the characters are talking about sex and interpret accordingly. Sex was still a big taboo in 1919. Mercury was used to treat syphilis in pre-antibiotic days. Claudine refers to the
Colette character. Divorce, in Crowley's time and place, was considered scandalous. There were many more newspapers per capita, and some of the strange names, e.g.,
The Screeching Buzzard, are meant to be jocular references to newspapers or newsweeklies. Don't hesitate to Google unknown words. Finally, either Crowley or his transcribers were inconsistent about leaving the quotes open for dialog that continues on to a new paragraph. Don't assume that the speaker is changing at the closed quote.
