Death Took a Publisher - Norman Forrest (Nigel Morland)

THE STORY:  Inspector Jack Grief and John Finnegan, a forensic chemist, join forces to solve two baffling poisoning murders that seem impossible.  In the first case the detectives cannot figure out how the poison was administered in a time span of less than five minutes when no food or drink were in the room and the vicitm show no signes of a hypodermic needle used. In the second the victim is found in a locked room with a fireplace blazing and a window, while unlatched, leads to a precarious ledge that no one would dare use as an escape.

THE CHARACTERS:  Death Took a Publisher (1936) is the first of two books Nigel Morland wrote using his Norman Forrest pseudonym.  In it we meet Grief, a typical British policeman of the Golden Age who is grounded in reality and will have nothing to do with so-called impossible murders.  "I hate mysteries!" he exclaims in exasperation at the midpoint of the book. He prefers solid police work though he delegates much of it to his platoon of constables and sergeants. Grief is not above some unorthodox breaking and entering to follow-up on leads.  Twice he basically commits burglary in order to go through the apartments of two suspects and faces grave consequences when he realizes he will somehow have to justify his breaking the law. 

John Finnegan is the super-genius of the novel. Formerly employed in the United States by the Justice Department he is handpicked by the Home Office in England to head up the newly created Department of Forensic Chemistry in London. Here he spends much of his time poring over fingerprints both legitimate and forged (more on that later) via his high powered microscopes and conducts experiments using other other technical wizardry. He also performs some elaborate detective work in discovering the bizarre murder means that killed Willoughby Royle, an ostensibly well liked publisher at Royle & Gray, Ltd. The method of killing is the book's most ingenious and -- to borrow Grief's adjective-- diabolical aspect of the story.

The suspects, especially the women, are an eccentric group.  There is Rebecca Finck, Royle's secretary who seems to spend much of her time covering up and inventing stories about what happened in the office when Royle was killed.  Also among the publishing employees is the elderly spinster Miss Thyme who is primarily a reader and copy editor of sorts. She determines whether or not most manuscripts are worthy of the publishing house or if they contain problems that need to be addressed prior to being sent to the printer. Grief discovers she is a secret devourer of erotica and risque literature and belittles her  in his mind.  He treats he less than kindly as a consequence seriously underestimates her. Miss Thyme will prove to be the only person to solve the crime because of her job as the firm's reader.

Sybelline Higgins is a caricature of a romance novelist who renminded me of Salome Otterbourne, the vociferous and opinionated novelist in Death on the Nile.  Miss Higgins first draws Grief's attention when she is astonished not that Royle was murdered but that he was poisoned with hydrocyanic acid. Each time the poison is mentioned Miss Higgins has an overly theatrical reaction. Grief begins to mull this over and comes up with a surprising theory that ultimately leads him to rummaging around in the novelist's home while she is conveniently not at home.

There are a handful of other employees at the firm but apart form the second victim and Mr. Brew, a satirical character who exists only for Morland to ridicule "anarchists" and "budding Communists", they all seem to be cut from the same drab cloth. I was proven right when they all, for the most part, turned out to be bogey characters.

INNOVATIONS:  The real interest of the novel is in the police work and the technical aspects of crime c solving handled by Finnegan. Morland was a proponent of realism in crime fiction. When he tackles the science of criminology (a great interest of his) the book rises above its pulpy origins. Much of the crimesolving is focused on fingerprints and Finnegan gets to lecture a lot about his mentors and genuine textbooks he has read on the topic.

Death Took a Publisher is often poking fun at professional writers and the entire business of publishing.  It's as much a story of those two worlds as it is a near send-up of detective fiction. Ultimately, all the allusions to detective fiction and writers (there are many) lead to the novel being a rather involved meta-fictional mystery novel. A minor character, Sheraton Andrews, is a reclusive mystery writer and he seems to have gone missing. Also missing is the manuscript of his latest book A Half Bucket of Blood. This all seems almost thrown in as an afterthought until Grief, in one of his burglaries, locates the manuscript and hands it over to Gavin Gray, co-owner of the publishing house. Gray then gives the manuscript to Miss Thyme to review for any issues prior to sending it to the printer. Suddenly, Andrews and his book become the focus of the novel. The denouement is as meta-fictional as any mystery novel I've ever read.  It may not be the first time this gimmick was employed, but Morland certainly gets his money's worth in the final chapter. 

THINGS I LEARNED: When Grief enters the home of the second victim he is impressed with the tasteful the furnishings and the decor that focuses on racehorse art. He notices a print of "The Worst View in Europe" and a portrait of a horse called Plenipotentiary. Of course I had to have my curiosity satisfied so off I went a-Googling.  The painting is by Charles Johnson Payne (aka "Snaffles") and depicts a rider falling disastrously in a steeplechase or in a failed attempt to jump a stonewall while fox hunting. Payne also did a painting called "The Finest View in Europe" as a companion piece which is a POV painting of a rider on horseback.

The horse is also real and during it s time was better know and "Plenipo". The Thoroughbred won six out of seven races during its year long career from April 1834-April 1835.

"Fingerprints Can Be Forged" (1924) is a monograph by Albert Wehde and John Nicholas Beffel.  Their work is cited by John Finnegan when he encounters an elaborate frame-up involving obviously faked prints that are meant to implicate an author in the murders. I found more on Beffel, a leftist journalist who specialized in writing about radical political ideas, especially promoting labor organizations and criticism of lynchings, than I did on Wehde. This 134 page treatise was reviewed in 1927 by Edmond Locard, Director of the Laboratory of Police Technique in Lyons. Locard, like Finnegan, also mentions in passing the work of Minovici of Bucharest who wrote about the possibility of forging fingerprints in his Manual of Forensic Medicine (1904). 

QUOTES:  Miss Higgins; "Mr. Royle was not a gentleman -- he was publisher. Therefore we cannot attribute to him the qualities reserved for ordinary mortals."

Finnegan: "...I'm not a Sherlock Holmes, and I can't tell if the man wore a pink hat and had an epileptic sister in Tooting!"

He picked up the latest Sayers, then put it down with a sour look on his face when he felt the e weight of it. Van Dine came in for a minute's consideration, and Gardner was equally treated. Finally he picked up the new Freeman and paid...his seven-and-sixpence.

Finnegan: "I like a detective story to be a detective story. When they try to write novels at the same time I've no patience for 'em."

Dan Lewis, Grief's superior: "I don't think I've ever come across a case like this. It's a detective novel, down to the ground--all the trimmings: red herrings, the senseless and complicated method of killing you would expect to find in a seven-and sixpence thriller..."

EASY TO FIND?  Rather scarce as usual, my friends. Both US and UK editions come in at least two types -- hardcover and paperback. However, both the US and UK paperback editions may be abridged. If you speak and read French, the cheapest copies out there are int hat language. All copies I turned up seem fairly priced.  Happy hunting!