Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books: An Additional Guide for the Curious

My copy of Martin Edward's Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books arrived yesterday and I was rather excited that I've already read and reviewed many of the books listed. As an additional guide to those who are interested in the books Martin discusses I've made a list of the titles that are reviewed here at Pretty Sinister Books. Here they are with hyperlinks to each page:

The Medbury Fort Murder by George Limnelius
Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow
Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert
The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon
Family Matters by Anthony Rolls
Middle Class Murder by Bruce Hamilton (reviewed under the US title Dead Reckoning)

In honor of Martin's book I've created a new tag "Edwards' 100" and added it to the list of tags for the above posts.  I'll also be using that tag in the future for any book I write about that appears in Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books.

Additionally, I have reviewed at least one book (often many more) by these authors though the one book Martin cites is not among any of my posts:

Freeman Wills Crofts
Agatha Christie  and also here (2 books)
H. C. Bailey
Gladys Mitchell (6 books)
Rupert Penny
Anthony Wynne (2 books)
John Dickson Carr (3 books), also Carter Dickson (3 books)
Miles Burton and also John Rhode (4 books total)
John Bude
Newton Gayle
Victor L. Whitechurch (2 books)
Ethel Lina White
J. J. Connington (2 books)
Q. Patrick also Jonathan Stagge, Patrick Quentin (10 books)
C. St. John Sprigg
Henry Wade
Christianna Brand (2 books)
Martin Porlock
Joanna Cannan
G.D.H. & Margaret Cole (3 books)
Patricia Highsmith (2 books, 1 movie)
Georges Simenon
Shelley Smith (5 books, 1 movie)
Julian Symons

I've already read several sections and made notes on about a dozen or so books Martin discusses (or mentions in passing in other reviews) that I'd like to read. And quite by coincidence I will be reviewing about five books that appear as one of the "honored 100" in Martin's book in the coming months. Three of them I've read this year long before I knew they were included in his crime fiction survey.  Like minds, eh?

I also grinned widely and laughed a bit when I saw my name mentioned along with a handful of other booksellers and mystery novel mavens in the last two sentences of Martin's Acknowledgments page. I'm very happy I was able to contribute in my small way to the creation of this book.

(And yes, these are photos of my books. Just a sampling of the many bookcases in this book museum of a house.)

FFB: Dead Reckoning - Bruce Hamilton

"Well written, but most unpleasant tale" -- penciled remark by a Previous Owner left in my copy of Dead Reckoning

THE STORY:Tim Kennedy is a successful dentist and happily married to Esther. Until one evening his vivacious, attractive wife goes chasing after her hat on a busy roadway. She is struck by a car and suffers multiple injuries. Her recovery is a painful and disheartening one. She is left horribly disfigured, crippled on one side of her body, and drained of her lust for life. Taking care of Esther becomes a burden to Tim, his love and devotion dwindling, eventually finding himself drawn to the much younger Alma Shepherd. Tim begins to daydream of how easier his life might be without Esther leading to what he thinks is the perfect murder.

THE CHARACTERS:The original title of Dead Reckoning (1937) in England was Middle Class Murder. That title is a good cue to the kinds of people to expect in its realistic rendering of a dentist, his patients and friends. But it is Hamilton's juxtaposition of mundane homelife and a routine workplace against the secret criminal plotting of our anti-hero that make the book more than just a mainstream novel which in the first half it very much resembles. From the very first page we know Tim Kennedy is planning on killing his wife, one of several half-started, then abandoned plots that will come back to haunt him in the final chapters.

The story is told in third person but everything is viewed through Tim's perspective. He at first seems like an amiable man, well respected in his profession and well liked among his small circle of friends and acquaintances. As the story progresses he gradually transforms into a figure of pathetic desperation. Aching for the sex life he once had, longing to be desired, suffering through the worst kind of middle age crisis and coming to the most heinous decision on how to transcend his depression and unhappiness. Remarkably, it is Hamilton's skill in turning our sympathies toward Tim when he becomes the victim of a nasty blackmail plot that make this book a unique British version of a James M. Cain tale of infidelity and murder.

We know poor Esther is doomed from the start and yet she never becomes sentimentalized. Her recovery is painful to read of while her burgeoning friendship with Alma, Tim's object of desire, is an ironic high point of joy in her brief post-accident life. Tim's business partner Adam, who becomes his nemesis in Book Two, is a fine portrait of a little man attempting to live a life of big dreams yet revealing instead nothing but amoral corruption and small-minded greed. The lack of police throughout the story highlights another world of Hamilton's creation fraught with omnipresent danger, paranoia and near lawlessness.

INNOVATIONS: Hamilton's brother Patrick is best known for his playwriting skills, but Dead Reckoning shows the elder Hamilton to have a similar gift for drama played out in skilled dialogue sequences that reveal character. There is a excellent section devoted to a tennis party ostensibly thrown together for Esther's benefit but in reality a way for Tim to get to see Alma. Hamilton uses the tennis party to introduce a few minor characters who will reappear in other functions in the second half of the novel as well as allowing us to see Esther experience the joy of her former self. The dialogue is cleverly rendered with innuendo between Alma and Tim; we know Tim's thoughts as well as his words, but can only guess at Alma's thoughts and feelings based on ambiguous remarks. A later scene where Tim takes Alma on a private tour of his home leads them to a room with a rocking horse. Alma sits down and rocks herself while Tim continues his veiled flirtation with her. It's a remarkable piece of writing that shows the older man pursuing a younger woman while at the same time ridiculing him as we see her acting in such a childlike manner.

The crime novel features take over in Book Two when Tim finds himself the victim of a blackmail scheme. In eerie anticipation of Robin Maugham's well known novel The Servant Tim finds himself at the mercy of his employee who in effect takes complete control of his life, commandeering his finances and forcing Tim into committing more acts of final desperation. This coupled with some bad news about his supposed property inheritance from Esther sends Tim into a continual downward spiral. It's a chilling portion of the novel. One cannot help side with the hapless dentist and hope that he can turn the tables on the avaricious and amoral Adam. There are some violent action set pieces and an eleventh hour scene where we think Tim may have indeed thwarted the plot to reveal him as Esther's killer.

THINGS I LEARNED: In one of the many dentist office scenes (some of them rather fascinating) Tim runs out of a special mouthwash preparation. He calls his assistant, Adam, to make him some more, but there is no reply. Because the patient is in the chair in mid-surgery he is forced to come up with an alternative: "Eventually he telephoned the chemist (whose boy proved to be out) and made do with lysol." Lysol as a mouthwash? I can't believe that. Hamilton must've intended Listerine and got confused. I looked up the history of Lysol products and it was never used as mouthwash. It was, however, used as a vaginal douche. I'll spare you anymore of my findings.

EASY TO FIND? If you speak and read French you're in luck. The most affordable copies are paperback editions in French (Portrait d'un meurtrier) but there are only five that I could find for sale. No good news for the original English language editions. A single copy of the UK title Middle Class Murder is available if you're willing to pay $324 (£250) while only two US editions are for sale priced at $30 (no DJ) and $250 (with DJ). Looks like your local library may be the best bet.

FFB: The Medbury Fort Murder - George Limnelius

THE STORY: Loathsome Lt. Lepean is found with his throat cut and his head nearly severed from his body in a locked room at the isolated Medbury Fort situated on the Thames. Lepean was not at all admired among his fellow soldiers. The arrogant, sneering soldier was a known user of women and is revealed early on to be a ruthless blackmailer. There are at least four men who had very good reason to kill Lepean, two of them were being blackmailed. Was it one of them who slew the soldier or someone else?

THE CHARACTERS: At the start the story is told from the viewpoint of Major Hugh Preece who meets Lepean and faintly recognizes him from his good looks and his superior insinuating manner. A flashback occurs and we are taken to West Africa where Preece served alongside another soldier, Victor Wape, who also will end up at Medbury Fort fifteen years later. The West African flashback is one of the most enlightening pieces of writing I've read in a long time. I learned all sorts of arcane tidbits about African culture (circa 1914) and the British military presence there. But it is a courtroom scene with a horrifying conclusion that is the main reason for this flashback. That and the revelation of how Preece and Wape both knew Lepean in their past. We also learn how Preece met his wife Claire, his romantic fling with a stage actress named Prunella Lake, and a bit about Wape's personal life.

Lepean's murder is solved by three different policeman: a local constable who is not all that competent, Inspector Paton of Scotland Yard, and his superior officer Chief Inspector McMaster. All three do their part in uncovering key evidence in the unusual locked room murder which seems to have been inspired by a famous detective novel. This is told to us when Major Preece describes in detail how he plans to kill Lepean early in the book. When Lepean is found murdered exactly as Preece planned there is a strong suspicion that the major was the killer. But the story, of course, will turn out to be not all that simple.

Prunella also plays a primary part in the crime. We know that she urged Preece to eliminate Lepean who knew of a secret liaison between the two. It's not just because Prunella is now married to a prominent aristocrat that she fears exposure. There is something much more damaging to her reputation and her comfortable life. She writes a letter to Preece hinting at murder and instructing him to destroy the letter after he reads it. Claire will also enter the picture and will turn amateur sleuth in order to save her husband from the gallows when it appears that he is the primary suspect in the murder.

INNOVATIONS: This is one of the most unique novels I've read in early 20th century crime fiction because it is both an inverted detective novel and a true detective novel. It seems from the beginning that Limnelius was inspired by the books of Anthony Berkeley for we will follow Major Preece from his planning stage to the actual crime. But the book is told in third person and we get all sorts of viewpoints throughout the novel. On the night of the murder we are fairly certain that Preece did not follow through with his plans based on some events that happen prior to the discovery of the body. Yet there is an ambiguity about whether or not he did kill Lepean by the time he is discovered dead.

If you know the famous novel (which is mentioned twice over the course of this book) that Preece used as inspiration then you will also be looking for certain evidence and behaviors. There are a few specific incidents that make it possible for at least three different men to have killed the vile blackmailer, but odd clues and items keeps turning up that make the case very difficult to sort out. When one character asks Inspector Paton if he has any clues he says nothing. But we hear his thoughts: "Yes,...plenty of clues. Too many clues; but no evidence, and no motive." Paton is referring to the discovery of three different possible weapons -- a scalpel, an African machete found on the grounds, and a curved French bayonet hidden in a corner of the murder room. Other curious bits turn up like what was in the ashes of the fireplace in Lepean's room and what McMaster finds when he examines the broken down door. By the end of the book the revelations of what actually happened on the night of the murder uncover not only a surprise killer, but three other unexpected twists in the plot. The reviewer for The Bookman in the November 1929 issue called this a "...brilliant and well-written piece of detective fiction with a good plot." Nicely understated, I'd say.

QUOTES: "...this looked as if it were going to develop into one of the those "mystery" cases, so dear to the journalist, so repugnant to the best instincts of the professional detective."

"To discover the romantic sensual man it is unnecessary to probe very deep. Even a middle-class, plain, and respectably married detective is not entirely immune from the occasional indulgence in daydreams in which he pays the dashing and intensely amative hero."

"Then, fatally, for Prunella, he remembered her origin. She was not a genuine aristocrat. He might have married just such another as Prunella Lake himself. No! With hardly the slightest twinge of regret, he put the temptation from him. It was, in a sense, a triumph for the moral value of British snobbery."

THE AUTHOR: Lewis George Robinson used the pseudonym "George Limnelius" for two detective novels. Limnelius comes from his mother's maiden name Limnel. The Medbury Fort Murder is his first and most successful mystery novel. He based much of the plot on his personal experience as a medical officer in the Royal Army where he served during the first World War. though I found no proof of his being stationed in West Africa I am positive that he must've been there based on the concentrated detail of African geography and culture.

Map of West Africa from 1910 showing
probable locations in The Medbury Fort Murder

THINGS I LEARNED: I had a devil of a time trying to figure exactly in which African country Preece and company were stationed. Limnelius uses the outdated British names, circa the 1920s and some dating back to the 18th century, for all the towns and countries and regions. He names a river that either doesn't exist (Rene) or had its name changed. He refers to Mandingo as both a language and a region, the Mongola Valley (couldn't locate it) and a city called Sakene (another strike out). He mentions Senegalia (another passé name) but not Sierra Leone which was British occupied at the time. He talks of French Equatorial Africa which at the time took up about one third of the continent. I have a feeling the flashback in West Africa took place in what is now Sierra Leone, but it was very hard to pinpoint.

The term mammy palaver refers to both the gossip of African women and is a slang term the Brits used to talk euphemistically of sexual relations between white men and African women. Palaver apparently is not only an African term that means gossip but the act of sex itself. The Brits borrowed that slang term and mixed it with their own pejorative "mammy" for any African woman. There is a lot of race talk in the flashback sequence and much of it reveals some of the less attractive by-products of colonialism that began in the 17th century and still existed in the early 20th century.

The gruesome surprise that takes place during the climactic courtroom sequence in the flashback has a eerie resonance for what is going on in both Africa and the Middle East with the rise of brutal terrorists who look back to their ancestors in meting out gory retribution.

I also learned more than I ever cared to know about slaughter practices in a kosher butcher shop. The visit Chief Inspector McMaster makes there provides a major clue to the solution of the mystery.

EASY TO FIND? Only a handful appear for sale on the various bookselling websites. Copies start at a mere seven bucks and run upwards to $63. None of the copies I found came with the apparently very rare dust jacket. There are no paperback reprints that I know of, either in the US of the UK where it was originally published. There is only one US reprint in hardcover from Grosset & Dunlap. Of the two books Robinson wrote under his "George Limnelius" pen name The Medbury Fort Murder is the easier to find. There's even an eBook version at Hathi Digital Trust!  The Manuscript Murder (1933), his second and last mystery, is extremely scarce.

UPDATE, NOV. 2017:  Thanks to a reader in Spain (I think) I have just learned that George Limnelius wrote a third mystery -- Tell No Tales (1931, Bles).  There is only one English language edition  from the UK publisher and no US edition at all.  And apparently at least one Spanish translation as well (see comments below).  I would guess that this third book (which I had never heard of until today) must be the most difficult one to find a copy of these days.

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This is the third of many 1929 books I am reading and writing up for the "Crime of the Century" month long celebration of mystery novels that were published in that year. Previously reviewed were The Secret of Sea-Dream House and The May Day Mystery. More 1929 book reviews are on the way!

TUESDAY CLUB: Death under Sail - C. P. Snow

The shipboard mystery or nautical mystery novel is just as prevalent in the Golden Age as those set on a train. Death on the Nile may very well be the quintessential detective novel set on board a ship. Freeman Wills Crofts is better known for his train mysteries but he wrote quite a few with ships and yachts including The Sea Mystery, Mystery in the Channel, The Loss of the 'Jane Vosper', and Mystery on Southampton Water (Crime on the Solent in the US). A small sampling of other titles: Hate Ship by Bruce Graeme, Singing in the Shrouds and A Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh, and Too Much of Water by Bruce Hamilton.

The American writers were just as good at setting murders on board luxury yachts, cruise ships, military craft, submarines and rowboats just as well as their British counterparts. S.S. Murder by Q. Patrick tells of a bridge party on board a yacht and one of the card players being done in. Obelists at Sea by C. Daly King is the debut detective novel featuring the erudite and long winded Dr. L. Rees Pons. John Dickson Carr's shipboard mystery The Blind Barber is more farce than detective novel, but as Carter Dickson Nine-And Death Makes Ten (aka Murder in the Submarine Zone) is rather unique in that the ship featured is a military cargo carrier that is been temporarily assigned as a passenger ship and the plot brings up all sorts of maritime laws during WW2 including how the blackout rules in England extended to ships and cruise lines. Rufus King made an entire career of writing about killers dispatching their victims at sea in titles such as Murder on the Yacht, Murder by Latitude, The Lesser Antilles Case, Murder Masks Miami and many, many more.

This may lead you to believe that I'll be writing about one of these American shipboard mysteries and I thought I was going to do so, too. That is until I uncovered my very old copy of Death under Sail (1932) and decided to finally give it its long overdue examination.

A wherry yacht and all its parts

Roger Mills, physician and yachting enthusiast, invites six friends on an excursion through the Broads, the system of rivers and lakes in Norfolk. The morning after picking up Ian Capel, the oldest guest and narrator of Death Under Sail, Roger is found shot dead still holding on to the tiller in the stern well (see plan of The Siren below). Though the murder in C. P. Snow's very first work of fiction (and first of only two detective novels) does indeed take place on a ship -- specifically a wherry yacht -- the majority of the book actually takes place on land. The yachting party is confined to a bungalow several miles down the River Bure and a short jaunt up the River Thurne in the Norfolk village of Potter Heigham. There they stew, fester and fret doing their best to endure the Puritan tirades of shrewish housekeeper Mrs. Tufts and undergoing absurd interrogations from Det.-Sgt. Aloysius Birrell who seems to have learned most of his techniques from one volume of criminology and about a dozen detective novels.

The novel at first appears to be a parody of the detective novel. Birrell comes off as a comic character from the moment of his entrance where his apparent reckless driving of a police motorboat causes a violent wake to capsize the dinghy sending three men into the river. Contrasted with Birrell, is the omniscient amateur sleuth Finbow who is a friend of Ian Capel's and who Capel calls in to help investigate the puzzling death of Roger Mills. Finbow spends much of his time observing, flattering the suspects into revealing themselves, and eavesdropping on people's private conversations like any good amateur detective of the Golden Age would do. Ethics have nothing to do with crime solving where Finbow is concerned. He also spends a lot of time expounding some of Snow's own personal beliefs which interestingly will serve as the foundation for his later mission in life as spokesman for the scientific mind. All these mini-lectures seem to be thrown in to distract the reader. But Snow has plotted the book in a devious fashion and despite the lectures that appear to be filler the book is actually very much in the fair play tradition.

There is a lot of talk about the routine that develops on a ship when people travel in such a confined space like the Siren. The murderer must have been aware of who did what and where they went every morning, Finbow surmises. Ian is therefore eliminated from the start as he has only been on board the Siren for a single day and night. Not long enough for anyone else to know where he might be when Roger was shot. The rest of the detective work is done along these lines. Snow might have been influenced by the detective novels of Anthony Berkeley who was a pioneer in stressing the importance of psychological motive and human behavior in crime fiction. There is not much physical evidence to review. Rather, Finbow is more interested in why Avice is so frightened and why her crying seems to be more acting than genuine, why William remained shirtless on the morning of the murder and the importance of how he undresses, why Tonia appears to be in love with Phillip but may be masking a hidden love affair, and why Christopher needed to get out of his wet clothes so quickly after the capsizing of the dinghy. These "psychological insights" are what lead Finbow to eliminate most of the suspects eventually leading him to the identity and motive of the killer. He develops a list of five important questions that include all the suspects and each question is answered in grand detail in the final chapter. It is only then that the reader learns that everything mattered, each incident and discussion was essential to the story. It's all brilliantly done with some bravura misdirection that even the most seasoned detective fiction aficionados will not spot.

THINGS I LEARNED: Though not much is discussed about the wherry itself or the Broads I needed to satisfy my curiosity and so I looked up all sorts of photos of Norfolk locales mentioned along the rivers shown on Finbow's map. Then I visited a fascinating website with photos of families and friends on their wherry yachts and got to see just how the Norfolk towns looked at the time when Snow's novel was set and even earlier. In fact, the bulk of the photos are from the post World War I era. You can look at the same photos if you so desire by going to Broadland Memories.

MCC is mentioned in passing but I had no idea what the characters were talking about. The passage is here: "Tradition, my boy," William broke in sharply. "Like the M.C.C. and Public Schools. Doing a thing twice is good enough reason for doing it forever." Based on the linking of tradition with MCC and public schools I'm guessing William means the Marylebone Cricket Club which controlled the way both amateur and professional cricket was played for over three centuries. From the info I looked up the MCC still owns the copyright on cricket rules that were created back in the late 18th century. Apparently another group known as the ICC (International Cricket Club) is trying to wrest control from them and make a more harmonious, less rigid rule governing board for international cricket playing.

One of the many Penguin reprints

EASY TO FIND? Yes, indeed. Luckily, Death Under Sail was chosen as one of the "Top 50 Detective Novels from 1900-1950" by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Taylor. That selection allowed the book to be reprinted multiple times since its original 1932 publication. Several paperback reprints are available in the used book market in both US and UK editions. And you can still find a few copies of either the Doubleday Crime Club 1st edition (US) or the Collins Crime Club 1st edition (UK) if you're willing to shell out $75 or more. The prices for the paperback reprints, of course, are much more reasonable and there are literally hundreds of copies out there. Happy hunting!

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This is my second post on travel in detective fiction which is the theme for May for the group of vintage mystery fiction fans who call themselves "The Tuesday Bloggers." Other links are here:

Throw Mama (or Anyone Else) from the Train! - Bev at My Reader's Block
Christie on Holiday - Moira at Clothes in Books
Why Set a Murder Mystery on Holiday or a Mode of Transportation? - Kate at Cross-Examining Crime
This Train Is Bound for Gory - Brad at Ah! Sweet Mystery
 Coach Tours to Crime - Helen at Your Freedom and Ours

FFB: The Jefferson Farjeon Reprint Mystery

In light of the unusual interest in long forgotten mystery writer Jefferson Farjeon and the unrivaled popularity of the recent reprint edition of Mystery in White I thought I'd look at some of his novels that aren't getting the attention of the British Library Crime Classics imprint. Seven Dead (1939) is one they somehow overlooked yet to me is a better candidate for a reprint edition as it highlights Farjeon's skills in narrative experimentation, suspense and is overall one of the more original spins on a detective novel plot from the Golden Age.

As the title suggests the crux of the plot is the discovery of seven corpses found in a locked and shuttered room in a remote seaside cottage. They all show signs of the throes of a violent death but no trace of wounds on any of their bodies. The crime scene is investigated first by amateur Tom Hazeldean, a reporter and yachtsman, and Inspector Kendall. Entranced by a portrait of a young girl that has been inexplicably pierced by a bullet Hazeldean is determined to track down the subject of the painting, now a grown woman. She and her uncle were the occupants of the cottage called Haven House and he is sure they know what happened to the victims. Hazeldean heads to Boulogne after some initial inquiries indicate that Mr. Fenner and his niece were headed that way.

The book begins with the viewpoint of an itinerant pickpocket and thief who stumbles upon the crime scene after breaking into the house through the only open window, shifts to Hazeldean and then Hazeldean and Kendall. When Hazeldean heads off to France (for nearly one third of the book) the book morphs from detective novel into an adventure novel with the reporter as protagonist and Dora Fenner as the damsel in distress. The plot also takes on the air of a romantic thriller with several set pieces featuring our hero and heroine being captured and rescued and several supporting characters filling in as villains of one color or another. This section ends with a cliffhanger and then the story flashes back to England.

Back at Haven House the narrative style and mood switches back to the original detective novel mode as we follow Inspector Kendall and his police team through their investigation of the multiple murders and their desperate attempt to uncover the victims' identities. Most of all the plot is concerned with why all seven people were dispatched at once in the locked room. However, Farjeon has not devised an impossible crime mystery, for the murderer merely locked his victims in the room and left them to their fate in a fiendishly devised deathtrap. Rather the author is more concerned with the slow reveal of the motivation for the mass murder.

Like a good old fashioned detective novel we are treated to the discovery of tire tracks, footprints, other odd clues, and a mix of insightful deductions based on observation of human behavior. There is a well done scene in which Kendall and his Dogberry-like cohort Sgt. Wade follow the trail of a bicycle and discover the surprise method of the killer's escape. "If you weren't smarter than your conversation, Wade," Kendall says to his sergeant, "I'd have you in the bush to join the bicycle. Fortunately, during the past few hours I've found out that you are much more useful than you sound, even if sometimes it's only by accident." Poor Sgt. Wade is the butt of many such insulting jokes. Not as oblivious as Shakespeare's premiere sputtering and ineffectual head of the night watch Wade is nonetheless included for comic relief.

In the end Farjeon once again resorts to a shift in the narrative point of view and has the entire story resolved in an intricate tale of a shipwreck, survival on a desert island, and a horrific revenge plot all of which is recorded in the pages of a diary. The finale has a tendency to go way over the top in Farjeon's insistence on adding twist after twist, but you can't deny that he knows the definition of thriller when he sets out to write one. Seven Dead is a prime example of Farjeon at the top of his game and exemplifies his hallmark in the genre -- the use of narrative tricks and stylistic experimentation.

The same cannot be said of The Z Murders (1932), a much earlier effort that owes a lot to the work of John Buchan than it does to John Dickson Carr. Barely containing a smidgen of the usual plot elements of the traditional detective novel though it is in essence the story of the tracking down of a serial killer, The Z Murders is an outright pursuit thriller calling to mind in many of its scenes classic adventure novels like The 39 Steps.

Richard Temperley operating on a mixture of gallantry and instinct goes out of his way to protect a person of interest in a series of murders. In turn he is pursued by police who feel Temperley will lead them to Sylvia Wynne, the person of interest. The murders seem inspired by the kind of thing found in the pages of Edgar Wallace as a crimson Z made of metal has been left at each crime scene. Intended to baffle the police and signify the work of a mad killer working for some secret society a modern reader may easily see through the deception almost immediately. This is the kind of hackneyed device, already overused in the 1930s, is astonishingly still being used by modern writers of gruesome serial killer novels.

Farjeon writes of his characters being "implicated in the same mosaic." Mosaic is a good analogy for this kind of conspiracy thriller. Seemingly random encounters and strangers act as the colored tiles of a mosaic. When assembled together in the proper pattern they create the full picture and lead to a clearing up of the mystery. This "all things are connected" philosophy shows up again at the beginning of Chapter 17 ("What Happened at Midnight"). Farjeon points out the ironic positive effects of crime and uses as examples the taxi drivers and newsboys who benefit from a sudden rise in their income.

Fast paced and action filled The Z Murders' through line is impeded by repetition notably in the tiffs and spats Richard and Sylvia engage in. Sometimes this banter is entertaining and reminiscent of Beatrice and Benedick's sparring wit but in Farjeon's hands each reiteration becomes increasingly annoying. Another irksome gimmick is Richard's tendency to have conversation with himself. His thinking to himself rather than described in prose is rendered as dialogue and the narration even takes on his persona. While this is yet another instance of Farjeon's experimentation I found it to be cutesy and bothersome. Similarly, a Q&A between a police inspector and a "village idiot" rendered as a prose monologue rather than dialogue exists only as a writer's trick and fails to serve the story. The entire middle section of the book drags with the aforementioned tiffs, narrative play and protracted scenes of melodrama. The fifth example of an argument between Richard and Sylvia in which he demands information and she offers nothing almost had me closing the book and never finishing it.

Ultimately, The Z Murders is far too familiar and not as exciting or original as Seven Dead. Why then was something as tiresomely formulaic as The Z Murders chosen to be reprinted while a book as daring and convention breaking as Seven Dead continues to languish in the Limbo of Out-of-Printdom? The mysteries of reprint publishing are often too baffling for me to contemplate.

The Z Murders is available from the British Library Crime Classics imprint. They have also reprinted Farjeon's Thirteen Guests which seems to be more in the line of Mystery in White, being yet another country house style detective novel. I have not read that book, but I'll continue to delve into the work of Jefferson Farjeon. He is one of the most unique narrative experimenters of the Golden Age alongside Milward Kennedy. By the way...why aren't his books being reprinted?

Family Matters - Anthony Rolls

“Everything was foreseen – everything except what actually happened…”

Robert Arthur Kewdingham, recently out of a job as an engineer for a manufacturing company, retreats into a private world occupying his time with his bizarre collections of insect specimens and ancient Roman artifacts and his crackpot occult beliefs. Kewdingham believes himself to be the reincarnation of Athu-na-Shulah, an Atlantean high priest and loves to talk about the wisdom of the ancients who built that lost city lecturing rapturously about their marvelous engineering skills that led to building pyramids and other wondrous feats. He dismisses Einstein's popular theories of physics admiring instead these ancient people “who truly knew the secrets of the stars.” His wife Bertha suffers in silence and maintains an outwardly polite demeanor but longs for the company of a real man. She turns her eyes to a frequent visitor and her husband’s cousin, John Harrigall. The gossipy judgmental housekeeper is eyeing these two and does not like at all what she sees. Neither does Robert Arthur’s father, Old Robert, who openly displays his antipathy for Bertha and her not so subtle way of flirting with Harrigall.

This is the Kewdingham household as we first encounter it in the first few chapters of Family Matters (1933). It is a home of jealousy, hatred, suspicion and spitefulness. We know from the outset that Robert Arthur is targeted for death and we know who is plotting his murder. The surprise comes in how the murder plans backfire spectacularly.

This is not a typical inverted crime novel by any means. We watch the two would-be murderers carry out their nefarious plans never suspecting the inevitable, but unprepared for the genuine outcome. First, there is a particularly evil plot in which Robert Arthur’s own physician Dr. Wilson Bagge uses him as a guinea pig for the development of a lethal poison. Since Kewdingham is a hypochondriac, constantly suffering from one ailment or another and taking a variety of medications both by prescription and of his own invention, Dr. Bagge sees in him the perfect victim. Bertha is the other poisoner and her method is just as insidious, perhaps moreso as she adds her poison of choice – a lead compound that looks like sugar and conveniently has a slightly sweet taste – to her husband’s meals every day over a period of weeks. The two murderers oblivious to each other’s plotting are dumbfounded when their intended victim not only refuses to succumb to each poison he seems to be healthier than ever.

Family Matters begins as an intensely detailed, ironically intimate and – dare I say it – cozy study of a bitter household at war with one another. Beneath the feigned politeness and the veiled insults are deeply felt passions that are held in check. Bertha restrains her burgeoning sexual attraction to John and all but explodes when she is alone with him. Dr. Bagge slowly reveals himself to be not the kindly village physician but a megalomaniacal mad scientist more often found in American shudder pulps. You keep thinking he is going to burst out in a insane laugh and rub his hands together. But he too reins in his passions, holding back his glee and frustrations while conducting the most unethical and deadly of his experiments.

Rolls has a cheeky omniscient narrator who practically spoofs the “Gentle Reader” tone one finds in early 19th century novels of manners by writers like Austen and Eliot. His tone, however, is subtly satiric amid the ease and comfort he initially builds upon.

"A woman’s words, [John] said to himself, have to be translated, not from one language to another, but from one sense to another. You must form your opinion of a woman (if you think an opinion is necessary) by observing what she does, not by listening to what she says."

"If it had not been for this new fear of [her husband], she might have gone on, even without hope; she might have repressed the lurking impulse. Fear, as it so often does, drove a desperate mind to a fatal decision."

"What is peculiar in this case of Robert Kewdingham is not the mere fact of murder, but the extraordinary conflict of design which is presently to be revealed."

Periodically this quaint satiric tone is dropped in favor of outright comedy as in the wonderful scene in which the prattling, piccolo-voiced Pamela Chaddlewick (so perfectly named) stuns Bertha and Robert with her tea leaf reading skills. She takes Robert’s cup and after a few expert swirls foretells a dire warning of a man and woman who will bring danger to his home. She both impresses herself and frightens the others present, especially Bertha who tries to clear the tea things as quickly as possible before Pamela decides to do a few more swirls and sees something all too clearly.

The genius of the book is how it keeps defying categorization. You think you know what Rolls is up to yet he keeps changing the rules almost at each chapter ending. What begins as an ironic novel of manners soon gives way to an inverted crime novel with detailed psychological probing yet once again sheds that label in the closing chapters and turns into a whodunit. When Kewdingham finally does die everyone is stunned to learn the cause of his death. The autopsy turns up not lead poison, not aluminum poison, but that good old detective novel stand-by – arsenic. So where did the arsenic come from and who killed him? A shocking inquest, rivalling any courtroom murder trial, bombards the reader with multiple surprises revealed one after the other until we are led to the inquest jury’s verdict and an arrest. But there are still more surprises in store in the final paragraphs.

Family Matters has been out of print for decades and is one of the few crime novels that justly deserves being reprinted. It’s not just a superior example of a crime novel. I would dare to call it a minor masterpiece. Here is an engrossing and penetrating novel that expertly combines elements of the inverted crime novel, the detective novel and the novel of psychological suspense into one rewarding package. While you may be hard pressed locating an affordable copy in the used book market you may have luck trying to find the book through interlibrary lending services. Your efforts will not be in vain; I guarantee this book will not disappoint.

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Reading Challenge update: Golden Age Bingo Card, space N5 - "Book by author using a pseudonym"

Smallbone Deceased - Michael Gilbert

Lawyers sure do have an edge when it comes to writing about crime. So many lawyers made successful crime writers. Among the earliest were Melville Davisson Post, John Buchan and Erle Stanley Gardner. A contemporary lawyer-turned-crime writer list includes Sara Woods, Sarah Caudwell, Scott Turow, John Grisham and Martin Edwards. And those are just the few I can immediately think of without resorting to an exhaustive internet search. I'm sure I could fill a three inch column with names. Add to that list Michael Gilbert who I have finally decided to read after years of thinking about it. I chose as my first book his most lauded work, Smallbone Deceased (1950).

This lawyers' office seems no different than many of the cubicle spotted, fluorescent lit, sterile environments I've endured over the past twenty or so years as an office drudge in a variety of hospitals, advertising firms and not-for-profit organizations. The backbiting, the secretarial gossip, the petty jealousies, the after hours office sex, the professional rivalry, the enforced weekend staffing to preserve good customer relations, and the utter absurdity of a bureaucratic office enslaved to indexing and filing systems that are continually improved upon to afford better efficiency - I have encountered it all. Nothing seems to have changed in the past fifty plus years. Even with the advent of computers and email and electronic necessities like fax and copying machines everything I read of in Gilbert's book still goes on. It's only natural that a dead body would turn up in such an atmosphere. That it should turn up in a life size deed box and that the dead body has been dead for several weeks should indicate to you the overall tone of the book. Gilbert's penchant for black humor is on exhibit in sharply drawn, acerbically funny scenes. And it's a welcome addition to this cleverly constructed puzzle.

Marcus Smallbone is the dead man in the deed box. He was a member of a trust – the Ichabod Stokes Trust to be specific. The box in which he was discovered should have held the documents for that trust. They've gone missing. An awful lot of paper to go missing, too. So who killed Marcus and what happened to those papers? Inspector Hazelrigg enlists the aid of Henry Bohun, a newly employed statistician, as a sort of informer/sidekick to get to the bottom of the dirty business in the firm.

Of the detective novels I've read from the vintage era I can only say that Murder Must Advertise comes closest to capturing the microcosm of business office culture so truthfully. Sayers also displayed her own brand of wit, but her book is too closely tied to the 1930s. Gilbert's book is timeless. Though the book takes place in 1950 with references to black market goods and post-WW2 life the book could have been written a few years ago.

Everything you may have read elsewhere (and it has been reviewed and discussed repeatedly all over the interweb) about this book being among Gilbert's best -- if not the best --is true. Add me to the list of readers who have dubbed it  "highly recommended." Those of you out there who have endured a dreary office job, whether in a law firm or some other business, will find plenty to appreciate in the pages of Smallbone Deceased.