ROMANCES OF DETECTION
Lament for a Maker. By Michael Innes. (Gollancz. 7s. 6d.) Murder by Burial. By Stanley Canon. (Hanish Hamilton.
7s. 6d.) " I HAVE always felt," says that astute if pedantic Writer to the Signet, Mr. Wedderburn, " a curious attraction in romances of detection—a species of popular fiction which bears much the same relation to the world of actual crime as does pastoral poetry to the realities of rural economy." A true word. When Mr. Wedderburn was called away from Edinburgh that Christmas to the snowbound Castle Erchany, however, he must have begun to wonder whether he was living in real life or a romance of detection. There was the laird, Ranald Guthrie : a miser, with the habit of pickpocketing scarecrows ; a poet, too, in his loopy way (hence the tide of the book). There was the sinister castle tower, from which Guthrie hid fallen to his death after making a pass at someone with a battle-axe. There was the ancient feud- between the Guthries and the Lindsays, to be ended once for ,all by the love of young Lindsay for Gutluie's • ward, Christine, There was the factor, Hardcastle, an unto ruffian if ever I met one And 'there was the affair of the Learned Rats, and their connexion with a distinguished radiologist from Australia. Mr. Innes gives us in this, his best book, a situation com- pounded of Aeschylus and Drury Lane melodrama—and gets away with it : he tells the story through the mouths of five of his characters in turn—and gets away with that. The Thu.-will be delighted by the .colour, pathos and humotir -of his narrative, the veteran by the consummate skill. with which he offers several plausible solutions of the mystery, each one developing-naturally out of the last.
Murder by Burial is another book which can- be read just for the excellence of its characterisation and style; Here, though, the actual detection. is. thin, and the crime-addict may resent having his roll of suspects reduced to one. The setting is the cathedral- town of- Kynchester : - the .antagonists are Canon Burbery, a real archaeologist, and Colonel Cackett, a bogus; one, -Who- is also' invOlved hi a back=to-tlie:RoMans movement which is exploited* by certain very unpleasant British Hooded. Men. The murder, when it comes, is ingeniously contrived, but we have little doubt of its author. The moral of-the book is that Satan has work for idle hands— especially when those hands belong to men who have exercised power but have not been as the pundits- put it, educated for leisure. To Mr. Crofts, on the other hand, the crime's the thing. The End of Andrew Harrison is another of those sober, reasonable, closely-knit patterns of detection which we have come to expect from this writer. We may think that Inspector French is not quite as quick in the uptake as usual ; but he is only a human policeman after all, not one of your amateur daemons of investigation, and as such we forgive him for not tumbling at once to the clue of the hot bowl and the method by which the porthole of the houseboat was opened. The victim here is a financier, and Mr. Crofts does not spare us the stink of High Finance : he also provides us with more psychological evidence against the murderer than usual. I have only two complaints—(i) Markham Crewe fades out from his initial importanCe in the book and '(2)- I don't like " For the first time in the case doubt of .his ultimate success reared its ugly head."
- The convention by which the detective . assembles all his .
suspects in the last chapter, and tells them how and who, is not only. an interesting example of the artificiality of the detective novel but also the acid test of the writer's technical skill. Let the, plot be never so complex, provided it has a simple core, is closely knit and logically developed, the denouement can spring its surprise and tidy up loose ends in a small compass. It is a criticism of Appointment with Death, though a tribute to Mrs. Christie''-usual mastery of technique (she is surely the- neatest plotter we have), that for once Poirot takes far too long—forty pages, to be exact—in his summing-up. Apart from this, and a superfluity of italics, this story of the murder-of an aboininable old American matriarch, set in the rose-red city. of Petra, gets very fair marks. The Coroner Doubts begins with the apparent suicide of a distinguished geologist in his house on Dartmoor. A local solicitor, the coroner at the inquest, is doubtful about the verdict and calls in Mr. Tolefree to investigate. Among the suspects are the two lovers of the dead man's daughter and art ex-convict whom he had taken under his protection. Mr. Walling knows how to tell a story, and his plot is ingenious enough : I am not sure, though, that the type of man who commits blackmail is also the type who would commit murder to conceal the fact that- he has been a blackmailer. I have not read any other books by Mr. Ingram, but was agreeably impressed by The Ambart Trial. Here again blackmail is involved. The scene is Berkshire : the time, Christmas. The mystery of the death of the disagreeable Mr. Claire is investi- gated by Rudolph Mere and his barrister friend, Osborne Keale, who later undertakes the defence of the man accused of the crime. The dialogue and the characters are natural, while Osborne himself is made to give us a quite remarkable feeling of confidence in his powers. The book, however, is too long— the trial, which is excellently done, involves too much repeti- tion 'of material dealt with in- the preliminary investigations.
Death Walks Softly is a first novel, which shows its author possessed of considerable scientific knowledge, the power to spin an intricate plot, and the will to play fair with the reader. He might go far in the Wills-Crofts-Austin-Freeman school, which deliberately reduces the characters to the subordinate role of ciphers in a mathematical problem. In this book, unfortunately, Mr. Shepherd tries to indicate character and mannerisms, and it is done with all the conscientious infelicity of a school-marm writing terminal reports. The victim here is the leading research chemist in the firm of Paralder and Hyde : the method, a hypodermic syringe : these jolly little instruments are so fragile that I should never attempt to commit murder with one myself ; but every man to his taste. Georgette Heyer, in A Blunt Instrument, gives a brilliant display of the most delicately pointed wit : she can be guaranteed to keep you in fits of laughter, but her detection is perfunctory, to say the least ; and, among a small cast of charming and really live characters, P.C. Glass stands out oddly unnatural with his religious mania, his volleys of texts, his insubordination to his superiors. If we can't have discipline in the police force, where can we have it ? Still, you should read this book. If you can stomach the clotted style of its opening chapters, you will find plenty to excite you in Flying Blind, though Miss Campbell gives the murderer away with both hands a third of the way through the book, and I am not sure she is quite sound on rigor mortis. We start with a serie3 of inexplicable attacks upon two women, and end with suspense and bloodshed on the Wiltshire Downs. The Affair of the Heavenly Voice (the Heavenly Voice is the name of a gong in the house of an American woman detective-writer, who takes pupils in detective- writing) gives us an original lay-out and some superbspEcimens of high-flown Americrn at its worst. - -
The last two books on my list are thrillers. pure and simple, and both have real merit. Mr. Saltniarth has "not. yet de- Buchanised his style, and Indigo Death relies more upon coinci- dence than a book by inventive a writer should. Still, its tale of Nazi plots 'and sub-Nazi plots, racing at high_ speed from the English countryside to dark cellars in Germany, and ending in a terrific climax at Hindenburg's tomb, will keep you enthralled. Murder in Suffolk, written in a quiet, unpretentious, but no less effective manner, weaves together smuggling on the Essex creeks and the Queen of Sheba's lost treasure.
-NicHouis
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