IN BRIEF: Exit with Intent - Philip Loraine

Theater Royal in Grafton is in trouble.  Just before opening night of Here Comes Harry, a variety revue starring Happy Harry Hemple, the comedian headliner star, disappears along with Vera Silverini, an acrobat. While the producer and a talent agent swiftly hunt for a replacement Inspector Lundy and his police crew start an investigation uncovering all sorts of shenanigans among the cast and crew.  Two days later a dead body is found in a ravine by a footbridge in the slum neighborhood known as Vale End.  The police are surprised when the body turns out to be neither Harry nor Vera.

Exit with Intent (1950) is Philip Loraine's second detective novel and is a glorious throwback to traditional mystery novels of the Golden Age.  Among the colorful cast we have Vera's jealous husband Carlo Silverini, a strongman in the revue who someone is trying to frame for murder; Tommy Barnaby, Hepple's last minute replacement best known as playing Dame parts in pantomimes; Anna Nelson a singer being blackmailed; Edward Blackett, a reviled dresser up to no good with the secrets he divulges; Cohen, temperamental producer; Johnny Campbell, the harried director; and The Great Nimmo, billed as "The Prince of Illusionists", a magician who sees similarity with crime and the art of stage magic.

Though Inspector Lundy may ostensibly be presented as the lead detective it is Nimmo who will unravel all the various puzzles and literally unmask the devious murderer. As with most mysteries in the theatrical realm there is much role playing and deceit.  And of course, with a magician acting as a detective we get a lessons in misdirection and how criminals are similar to illusionists. Nimmo has a couple of pithy observations:

 "I tell you what Johnny: committing a crime must be like inventing a new trick in my line of business.  Alibis, you see: pretending to do one thing when really you're doing another."

"You can't force a conjuring trick, Inspector, any more than you can force a fact. The best tricks are the simplest ones and the best crimes -- if my detective stories don't mislead me -- are the same."

I liked the unusual Golden Age style clues like a heavy wardrobe basket and where it ended up, a missing white coat with diamond buttons, the pesky character Colson who wants Nimmo to explain all his tricks to him, a note with the number 6981, and the overall obsession with magic and misdirection. Loraine may not be on the same level as Carr or Rawson but he does an admirable job of using theater, magic and all the artifice of the performing arts to spin a lively tale of duplicitous characters and devilish mayhem. Though ultimately Loraine did not quite fool me (because of one single line in the book!) this does not really undercut the high entertainment value of one of the better detective novels set in the world of people who basically lie for a living.

Exit with Intent is unfortunately rather scarce. But you can place a bid on my copy in my eBay listings. Click here if interested.