The Holm Oaks - P. M. Hubbard

Jake Haddon and wife Elizabeth move into his uncle's home, a surprise inheritance. The house is located on a wooded estate but the forest of Holm Oaks was sold to neighbor Dennis Wainwright. Haddon has access to a right of way through the forest, but Wainwright seems unneighborly about the way Jake and Elizabeth, an avid birdwatcher who has spotted a night heron roosting in the trees, are spending time there.  Contentious relations follow. The problem is exacerbated when Jake begins an odd romance with Carol Wainwright, Dennis' wife. The two have secret trysts in the forest, talk of love, but never do much other than hold hands and embrace. Sex does not occur. Not even kissing! But Dennis senses that something is up between the two.

There follows a sort of symbolic rage expressed through legal battles about the forest and property rights. Wainwright wants to chop down the forest. The Haddons enlist the aid of a forestry council to prevent destruction. Then Wainwright puts up a fence and -- most bizarrely -- introduces some unruly and apparently violent pigs in the woods.  Elizabeth is fatally injured in a brutal encounter with a boar. Jake is certain that Wainwright means to kill his wife or him or both.

The setting, as is usual with Hubbard, is extremely well done.  The forest is imbued with menace. Throughout the entire book all of the Wainwright's actions and some of the Haddon's reactions are tainted with sinister ambiguity. This is Hubbard's hallmark as a suspense writer.  No one is ever really thoroughly good in a Hubbard novel.

Jake is depicted as a furtive man, spying on Dennis and Carol in early chapters, fantasizing about Carol, eventually falling in love with her. But his habit of lurking, eavesdropping and spying is as creepy and unsettling as the way Dennis comes across as a threatening, unfriendly neighbor.  Jake is the narrator and everything is filtered through his eyes so Dennis Wainwright is a villain from the get-go with little room for sympathy.

Late in the novel Elizabeth's sister Stella, a painter, shows up. She senses the house and forest are "not right". All her warnings to leave fall on deaf ears. Her antipathy for the entire area despite its wild beauty and tempting as a subject for her painting lead to an ugly argument.  Elizabeth kicks out her sister.  But Stella returns when all the warring with the Wainwrights leads to a violent death.

Overall, the book is very odd and sadly not one of my favorite Hubbard novels. It all turned out to be unsatisfying for me. The menace and weird spell-like hold the forest has over all the characters dissipates as the story focuses on Jake's infidelity. The whole thing devolves into a soap opera of hatred, jealousy and temporary madness.  There are better Hubbard books out there.

IN BRIEF: Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? - Leonard R. Gribble

 I've not read any of the Detective Inspector Anthony Slade mystery novels I've owned over the years until a few days ago.  If Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? (1938) is any indication of Gribble's style he seems to have been inspired by Edgar Wallace. While the title and premise succeeded in luring me into purchasing this copy, the story ended up very familiar.

Slade works for Department X2, some specialized section of Scotland Yard that is never really explained.  Maybe it's not even part of Scotland Yard.  I never understood the designation or what exactly they specialize in or why they get called upon.  In any case, he shows up at the scene of a murder at a masquerade party (or fancy dress ball as they call them in British GAD novels).  A well known financier named Stephen Ironsides comes dressed as his historical hero, Oliver Cromwell and someone stabbed him then made off with the weapon. The knife was stolen from another attendee, Peter Storand, who was dressed as a Roundhead. In fact, several people came dressed as historical figures associated with Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England era.  Sir Henry Dillocks at the suggestion of his daughter Frances comes as Charles I and she came as Henrietta Marie, his consort. This costumed trivia is an ironic overlay to the relationships of the primary characters: the murder victim was planning to marry Frances; Peter is in love with Frances and trying to dissuade her from agreeing to the marriage her father wants with Ironsides.

The story begins as a detective novel with the above eccentric plot details then, when it is discovered that the murder victim is an impostor, the book slowly morphs into an Edgar Wallace style thriller. As more suspects are found a subplot with gun runners, petty criminals and Ironsides' failing businesses complicate the plot.  It all starts to fall apart when Frances is kidnapped followed swiftly by the introduction of doppelgängers, plastic surgery, bribed servants, and ending with a forced marriage at sea performed by the ship's captain with the police in hot pursuit to stop it. Immediately, I thought of The Avenging Saint by Leslie Charteris, written several years before Gribble's book, which has exactly the same action-filled climax in the finale. While there are some unexpected incidents, much of Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? is laden with heavy melodrama and tiresome heightened dialogue sections that date the book.

I liked the relationship between Slade and his sergeant Clinton, but this too seems formulaic for an early GAD police procedural.  The comic Detective Sergeant is fairly standard in these types of mystery novels.  I wonder who was the first to have a murder mystery with the serious Detective Inspector in charge assisted by the somewhat whiny and comic sergeant.  Was it Wallace?  I haven't read enough of his books to know.

The villain is obvious from the start and his intricately thought out crimes and schemes are variously described as "fantastic" and "stupendous".  I'd use the adjective outlandish.  But of course it's fiction from a bygone era when these books were meant to thrill and excite. I guess in some ways it still succeeds.  I know my eyebrows were raised at a several points even if some of those surprises literally came in the last two pages in a written confession that explained two quasi-impossibilities related to the stabbing murder.

Gribble may be worth investigating in later Slade books or even in his many other mystery writing guises.  He also wrote as Leo Grex, Bruce Sanders, and several other pseudonyms.  The very first Gribble book, The Case of the Marsden Rubies (1929), is alluded to in the penultimate chapter. Though Gribble mentions one surprise plot element the villain of ...Marsden Rubies was -- thankfully -- not named.  It's a fairly easy to find book and I may sample one more tasting of Gribble and Slade in the future.  I know I have The Frightened Chameleon, a Slade mystery from 1950, somewhere in a box in this book museum. Stay tuned.