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archival mysteries, revisited



A while back there was a request for ideas for an archival mystery. I
was just reading the July 2000 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,
and found in it a story that is part of a series by Loren Estleman
that I didn't think of at the time of the original request. The series
"detective" is a man who is a film archivist at UCLA, who has the
improbable name of Rudolph Valentino. Of course, since he deals with
film people, this means that at least once in each story, there is a
conversation about how, although he looks something like his namesake,
he is no relation. The mysteries happen as he does things like
tracking down rare film footage that he wants to add to the archives.


In the current one, he goes to Italy where he is supposed to meet an
elderly director who will give him film he wants. When he gets there,
the director's wife slams the door in his face and refuses to let him
in. Eventually, he does manage to get in and talks to the
director--but there's something that bothers him about the man, and
eventually he discovers that it is an impersonator. In this case, the
crime is that the wife knew that the director's will gave all his
assets to someone other than her, so if he died, she would be left
homeless and penniless. So when he died, she buried the body, and
hired someone who could impersonate him if it was absolutely
necessary. The director's estranged daughter and the archivist
convince the wife that the Italian courts will overrule the will to
some extent and not leave her completely destitute, and we are left to
believe that they will let her get off lightly for not reporting the
man's death.



Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer
Special Collections Librarian/Archivist

Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive
Hyde Park, NY  12538
(845) 451-1757
c_crawfo@culinary.edu

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