Tag: British Library Crime Classics

Day 1241: Calamity in Kent

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Cover for Calamity in KentReporter Jimmy London is on vacation in the seaside town of Broadgate recovering from an illness when he meets a man behaving oddly. This man is the operator of the Broadgate Lift, a cliff railway. He has discovered a body in the locked lift.

Jimmy is happy to be on the spot of a scoop, so he investigates while he sends the operator to the police. He is delighted to find that his old friend, Inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, will be on the case. Shelley offers to exchange information with him if he will help investigate.

A classic locked door novel with a twist, the book was heavy going for me, for some reason. I think it was because if anyone made a point or explained anything, Rowland found a way, usually through Jimmy’s questions, to repeat it, as if he assumed his readers are dolts. As with many older mysteries, there’s not much characterization. So, a meh for this mystery.

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Day 1221: Portrait of a Murderer

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Cover for Portrait of a MurdererSet during Christmas of 1931, Portrait of a Murderer is an unusual novel. We know from the beginning who the murderer is, and at first it looks like he is going to get away with his crime. For its time, the psychological portrait of the murderer is surprisingly deep.

Gathered together for Christmas are Adrian Gray and his family. Adrian is in financial straits because of reckless investments he made through his son-in-law, Eustace Moore. Adrian’s oldest son, Richard, is a member of parliament who has been spending heavily on a blackmailing mistress and his bid for a title. Eustace’s investments are all about to fail, with many investors bankrupted. Youngest son Brand’s need to pursue his painting full time has overcome his duty to his family.

All three men plan to ask Adrian for money that he doesn’t have. Richard needs it to pay his blackmailer. Eustace needs £10,000 to keep his investors happy. Brand wants to offload his wife and children onto his father and sister so that he can return to Paris to paint. Failing that, he’d like a loan to support them.

Brand goes to speak to his father around midnight on Christmas Eve. He gets so angry because of Adrian’s attitude toward his career and life that he lashes out. Meaning to slam a heavy paperweight onto the desk, he hits his father in the head instead. Soon he is standing there stunned by what he has done. But it’s not long before he begins trying to find a way out of it. His solution? Frame Eustace.

This novel isn’t so much about the investigation as about Brand’s mental outlook. Dashing off a portrait of himself as he stands in the murder room, Brand recognizes his own genius and decides that nothing should get in the way of his art. Meredith seems, on the whole, sympathetic with him, even as he treats his own wife and children as discardable, simply because he is not sure of the children’s parentage.

Brand’s brother-in-law, Miles Avery, is not satisfied when Eustace is charged with the crime. Despite his wife Ruth’s apprehension, he manages to work out what really happened.

link to NetgalleyThere are some things that are now considered politically incorrect in this novel, originally published in 1933. In particular, anti-Semitic remarks may bother readers. Then there is Brand’s Nietschean sense of superiority, reminding me a bit of Raskolnikov without the feverishness. However, it’s a fascinating character study.

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Day 1109: The Sussex Downs Murder

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Cover for The Sussex Downs MurderJohn Rother sets off from Chalklands Farm for a holiday, but later his car is discovered not far from home. There is evidence of a struggle, and his bloody cap is found next to the car. But has John been kidnapped, attacked? There is no way to know.

Superintendent Meredith can’t help suspecting that John’s brother, William, had something to do with John’s disappearance. The two brothers co-own the farm and a lime-burning concern on the property, and rumor has it that John was flirting with William’s wife, Janet. But Meredith can’t prove John has been harmed.

Then one of the Rothers’ lime customers reports finding a bone in the lime. The bone is found to be a human tibia. When Meredith’s men go through the lime shipped since the murder, they find more bones. Moreover, Janet was spotted taking a package out to the lime kilns.

From the minimal information they start with, the police begin to collect more, but it doesn’t make sense. A strange man is seen fleeing the area where John’s car was found. Was he an accomplice? A bogus message lured William out on the night of his disappearance. Still, it looks like William murdered his brother, and Meredith is about to arrest him when he is found dead, an apparent suicide.

This mystery is fairly complicated, but I had an inkling of what was going on almost from the beginning and never changed my mind. I turned out to be right. As with the other Bude mysteries, the emphasis is on the puzzle. The characters, except for Meredith, are cyphers.

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Day 1066: The Lake District Murder

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Cover for The Lake District MurderIf I was thinking ahead, I would have read something for today that commemorated the Norman Invasion, but oh well . . .

The Lake District Murder is John Bude’s first mystery featuring Inspector Meredith. Golden Age mysteries seem to be divided between adventure novels and novels that focus on the puzzle. This one focuses on the puzzle.

A farmer stopping for gasoline finds the gas station owner, Clayton, an apparent suicide, with a mask over his face where he has funneled carbon monoxide from the engine of his car. But Meredith sees discrepancies at the scene. Why would the man have fixed himself a tea but not eaten it before committing suicide? And how could his hands be clean after he affixed the dirty hose?

Moreover, the victim was engaged to be married and had plans to emigrate to Canada with his bride. These plans are ones his partner in the garage, Higgins, claims not to know about.

Meredith’s investigation leads him to surmise that something illegal is going on involving the oil company and a chain of garages. As a result, the book focuses on this problem for most of the time, and it involves examinations of tank trucks, calculations of pumping speed and tank capacity, timetables, and lots of other details that are, frankly, boring.

When the solution comes, both to the illegal activity and the murder, it is so overly complicated that it’s hard to believe anyone would think of it. This is not one of the classic mysteries that I enjoyed. It focuses almost exclusively on the puzzle with little bother toward characterization or other literary elements.

Day 1013: Mystery in White

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Cover for Mystery in WhiteI have made it a tradition the past few years to review a Dickens Christmas story at Christmas time. We moved in October, though, so I have not yet unearthed my collection of Dickens Christmas stories. Wanting to read something seasonal, I settled on Mystery in White, which is set on Christmas Eve and Day and is also a sort of ghost story, which fits my tradition.

A heavy snowfall halts a trainful of people on their way to various Christmas gatherings. They are sitting there wondering how long they’ll be stuck when an older man, Mr. Maltby, a psychic researcher, abruptly leaves the train to walk to another station.

This action inspires a group of young people to follow him. They are a brother and sister, David and Lydia Carrington; a chorus girl, Jessie Noyes; and a young clerk, Robert Thomson. The only passenger from their car who stays is a blowhard.

Shortly after leaving the train, the party loses Mr. Maltby’s path and gets into difficulties in the snow. Luckily, they eventually find a house, but it has been left in a strange condition. The front door is unlocked, water is on the boil, tea is prepared, but no one is in the house.

Feeling they have no choice but to take shelter, the four make themselves at home. Jessie has sprained her ankle and Mr. Thomson becomes very ill. Mr. Maltby soon appears with another man, and the blowhard shows up. Soon, some of the party begin to feel uncomfortable in the house. Mr. Maltby is certain that something unpleasant has happened there, and the party soon learns that there was a murder on the train.

I have recently read several John Bude mysteries from the same period, and I admit to preferring Farjeon. He spends a lot more time with his characters instead of creating elaborate puzzles. I found this novel a pleasant way to spend a chilly December evening.

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Day 987: Murder of a Lady

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Cover for Murder of a LadyMurder of a Lady is a classic locked door mystery set in a castle in Scotland next to a loch. Amateur sleuth Dr. Eustace Hailey is visiting in the area when he hears of the death of Miss Mary Gregor, whom some regard as a saint, the respected sister of Duchlan, the castle owner. She was found dead in her bedroom of a stab would, but the bedroom door was locked. No one could have entered the window, because men were fishing in the loch, and the window was in plain sight of their boats. Miss Gregor is found to have an old wound in her chest that no one admits to knowing about.

When Dr. Hailey goes to investigate, he is not welcomed by Inspector Dundas, who wants to solve the case himself. An oddity of it was that a herring scale was found on the victim, and this and the report of a splash are enough to start rumors of a selkie among the Highland servants. Dundas is able to make no headway in the case at all, though, and finally asks for Dr. Hailey’s help. But shortly after the doctor arrives, Dundas is himself murdered, in similar circumstances to the original murder, within seconds of Hailey and Dr. McDonald leaving his room.

The new policeman, Inspector Barley, is quick to decide that Miss Gregor was murdered by Oonagh, Duchlan’s son’s wife, and Dr. McGregor, whom he thinks are lovers. He and Dr. Hailey have realized that Oonagh was trapped in a horrible situation at the castle, in a rivalry with Miss Gregor, who was not as saintly as people believe. But Dr. Hailey believes that Oonagh loves her husband Eoghan and is not having an affair. And soon there is another murder.

This novel is certainly a characteristic Golden Ager, focusing most of its attention on the locked room puzzle, although some attention also goes to understanding the psychology of the people living in the house. Still, Dr. Hailey is an enigma, and the story is wrapped up so abruptly after the solution of the murder that it is startling. Still, I mildly enjoyed this novel, especially for its Highland background.

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Day 878: Death on the Riviera

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Cover for Death on the RivieraDetective-Inspector Meredith and Sergeant Freddy Strang are on an unusual mission. They are following up clues that a British counterfeiter, “Chalky” Cobbett, is operating a counterfeiting ring on the Riviera. Since Meredith has encountered Chalky before, the French police hope the D. I. can help find and identify him. Meredith cautions Strang that they are working undercover, but not before they meet a tourist named Bill Dillon.

Nesta Hedderwick is a rich, middle-aged British woman with a villa in Menton who sometimes patronizes young, handsome men. Currently, she has two living with her in addition to her niece Dilys. Tony Shenton, in Dilys’ opinion, has been sponging off her aunt for far too long. He has no employment and orders the servants around as if they were his. His aunt has even given him a sports car. Even worse, he has invited a girl to stay, Kitty Linden, who is clearly infatuated with him.

Paul Latour is the other man. He keeps odd hours and spends most of his time in his room, painting. But when Dilys goes to an art show, she recognizes some of his work—with someone else’s name on it.

At the show Dilys meets Freddy Strang, who introduces himself as John Smith. Later, he is embarrassed when they run into Bill Dillon, who has come looking for Kitty, and Dilys finds out he is using a false name.

link to NetgalleyThe murder mentioned in this novel doesn’t occur until fully halfway through the book. Instead, we follow the details of the investigation into the counterfeiting ring and Freddy’s romance with Dilys. This atmospheric novel is one of the more enjoyable of these Poisoned Pen class reprints. There isn’t a great deal of characterization, but in general that is common with these older mysteries.

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Day 806: Silent Nights

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Cover for Silent NightsSilent Nights is a collection of classic mystery stories set at Christmastime. Represented are well-known writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy L. Sayers as well as writers who are not as well known now, such as Ethel Lina White and Leo Bruce. At least, I am no expert, but I have not heard of them before.

Like most mystery short stories I’ve read, these are more concerned with posing a puzzle. They are not long enough for much serious characterization or detailed plotting. Still, I found some of them surprisingly effective.

In “Waxworks” by Ethel Lina White, for example, atmosphere is created in a story of a female reporter who decides to spend the night in a haunted wax museum. She is stalked there by a jealous coworker.

“Stuffing” by Edgar Wallace has an ending reminiscent of “The Gift of the Magi” in which the ill-gotten gains from a robbery that are hidden in the crop of a Christmas turkey end up in the hands of a poor, innocent couple about to depart for Canada. They think both the turkey and the money are gifts from the woman’s rich uncle.

In “The Unknown Murderer,” H. C. Bailey’s detective Dr. Reggie Fortune figures out the game of a pathological murderer. In “Cambric Tea” by Margery Bower, a jealous man tries to frame two innocent people for murder.

link to NetgalleyNot all are that successful. “A Problem in White” by Nicholas Blake doesn’t tell the solution (which I guessed) unless you turn to the back of the book. “The Name on the Window” by Edmund Crispin depends its puzzle on which side of the window the victim supposedly wrote the name of his attacker. Yet for this solution, we must suppose that the victim was stabbed and then walked around a building and down a long hallway for no apparent reason than that he could collapse on the other side of the window. Not, I think, the behavior of a dying man. (And, typically, he didn’t just write the name of his attacker; he hinted at it.)

In any case, this collection made me interested in looking for some of the longer works by some of these authors.

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Day 760: The Z Murders

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Cover for The Z MurdersIn general, serial killer mysteries are a more modern invention, but that does not mean none were written in the Golden Age. Margery Allingham’s The Tiger in the Smoke is one example, although that killer’s victims are not as arbitrarily chosen as those in The Z Murders.

The main character of this novel is Richard Temperley, who has been traveling all night on a train when we meet him. His companion in the compartment, an elderly man, has been annoying him by snoring for hours. His train arrives at Euston Station at 5 AM, and he is perplexed about what to do with himself until a decent hour when the porter recommends the smoking room at a hotel across from the station.

When Richard arrives at the hotel, he is dismayed to pass his elderly railway companion in the hallway. In the room, he notices a beautiful young woman by the fire and thinks he will sit by the window. However, first he has an impulse to check on his baggage. When he returns, he finds the young woman emerging from the room looking upset. The elderly man is now sitting by the window, so he takes the woman’s seat by the fire. He is dozing off when he realizes the old man isn’t snoring. Sure enough, he is dead.

While Temperley is being quesioned by the police, he finds himself omitting information about the woman, particularly that he has found her purse in the seat of the chair he’s sitting on. The elderly man has been shot by a silenced pistol from the open window, the seat Temperley originally chose until he decided to check his baggage. A metal Z is next to the victim on the window sill.

Although Detective Inspector James doesn’t believe Temperley was involved in the crime, he thinks he knows more than he is saying. So, he puts a tail on Temperley. Temperley has found a card in the woman’s purse identifying her as Sylvia Wynne. He goes directly to her house and, finding no one there, is able to get in with a latch key. Richard finds a metal Z in the front hallway under the letter slot. A moment later, Sylvia comes through the window.

Of course, Richard has been smitten at first sight, but he is only able to speak with Sylvia briefly and give her his sister’s phone number before Inspector James is at the door. When he turns around, she is gone again.

link to NetgalleyThe resulting adventure/mystery involves a cross-country chase that reminds me a little bit of The 39 Steps without the espionage. The novel has a complicated plot, but the characters of Temperley and a cab driver named Diggs are nicely drawn. Although Sylvia is pretty much reduced to a damsel in distress, of the Golden Age mysteries I’ve been reading lately, I think I like Farjeon best.

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Day 757: Thirteen Guests

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Cover for Thirteen GuestsJohn Foss is a young man running away from London at the end of a failed love affair when he injures his foot jumping off the train at a small station. Guests bound for the house of Lord Aveling take him to the doctor’s house only to find that the doctor is away treating Mrs. Morris, Lord Aveling’s mother-in-law. Nadine Leveridge, a beautiful widow, insists on bringing John along to Lord Aveling’s, the unwitting thirteenth guest at a house party.

Lord Aveling’s guests feature a cricket player, an actress, a member of Parliament, a society painter, a gossip columnist, and a novelist, but there are also some more unusual guests, a vulgar sausage king and his family and a shady couple, the Chaters. Some odd things happen almost immediately. Someone throws paint on Leicester Pratt’s painting of Lord Aveling’s daughter Anne, and an odd confrontation takes place between Zena Wilding, the actress, and a strange man at the train station. Mr. Chater seems to be around sticking his nose into everything.

After John’s foot is treated, he is parked on a sofa in an anteroom. Late that night, he hears a dog barking outside, several exchanges in the hallway, and some glass breaking. The next morning it is obvious that someone broke out of the studio that Pratt locked after he discovered his ruined painting, and the dog has been stabbed to death. Later, the strange man from the station is discovered dead at the bottom of a nearby quarry.

Of course, when Detective-Inspector Kendall arrives, he finds that many of the house’s inhabitants have something to hide. And the man no one seems to know is not the only one to die.

link to NetgalleyAlthough this Golden Age mystery involves time tables, the solution is fairly straightforward but hard to guess. Agatha Christie was a great admirer of Farjeon, who I think gives a good sense of his characters, enough to help me distinguish one from the other when there were so many of them.

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