Madness
and witchcraft in a village that seems to be living in the Middle Ages
The Devil at Saxon Wall is the sixth Mrs Bradley mystery
Probably the
most bizarre Mrs Bradley mystery yet, The Devil at Saxon Wall, the sixth novel
about the eccentric psychoanalyst and amateur detective, published in 1935, is
the first of a number of Gladys Mitchell’s books to feature the theme of
witchcraft.
The story was
inspired after Gladys heard a lecture on witchcraft by her friend, the
detective fiction writer Helen Simpson, and she dedicated this book to her.
Mrs Bradley
has advised her best-selling novelist friend, Hannibal Jones, who has had a
breakdown and is suffering from writer’s block, to retreat to a quiet, rustic
village to find rest and inspiration for his work.
Although the
village of Saxon Wall might seem the perfect rural escape to begin with, Jones soon
finds himself intrigued by the odd characters among the villagers and their
pagan beliefs.
He also
finds himself compelled to try to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding
Neot House, a place where a young couple died soon after the birth of their
first child.
It is a hot
summer and the villagers are desperate for rain because they are short of
water. They decide the local vicar is to blame for the lack of water and Jones
has to step in to defend him when their anger drives them to march on the
vicarage armed with weapons.
Gladys Mitchell tells the story with the skill that was her hallmark
Jones makes
some enquiries to try to sort out what happened to two babies who he thinks may
have been swapped at birth, but when a man from the village is found bludgeoned
to death, he decides he must call in Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley to help
him.
The strangely
dressed old lady with her hideous cackle is more than a match for the angry
villagers and she proceeds to root out the devil at Saxon Wall using her own unique
and unorthodox methods.
At the end
of the novel, Mrs Bradley expresses the opinion that the inhabitants of Saxon
Wall are incapable of making straightforward statements. She thinks that this
peculiarity dates back to the days of the Norman conquest when the Saxons of those
parts, too cunning to tell direct lies to their overlords, resorted to
maddening half statements and obscure pronouncements, which made them difficult
to understand.
Although the
characters and situations are bizarre, the novel presents an intriguing mystery
which Mrs Bradley skilfully unravels and the story is well told by Gladys, who
helpfully provides ‘End Papers’ to clarify issues for the reader.
I found The
Devil at Saxon Wall entertaining and enjoyable and well worth reading.
Novel's fascinating format makes for a compelling and ingenious murder mystery
The Documents in the Case is notable for its experimental format
A bundle of letters and statements can be daunting to sort out in real life, but when a reader is presented with the same challenge at the beginning of a detective novel, they might be put off from even starting to read the story.
However, when the author of the novel happens to be Dorothy L Sayers, I think most readers would probably be prepared to make the effort.
In The Documents in the Case,the sixth detective novel by the author, which was published in 1930, there will be a murder to be solved eventually, and two men will join forces to play detective. But that is about all this story has in common with Dorothy’s other detective novels featuring her aristocratic sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, who doesn’t appear in this book at all.
The murder victim is not discovered until page 135. By then Dorothy has introduced us to the main protagonists in the story by presenting us with a succession of letters that they have written to other people, which will eventually become part of a bundle of evidence presented to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
We read the letters written by a young writer, John Munting, to his fiancée, Elizabeth Drake, letters written by a middle-aged spinster, Agatha Milsom, to her sister, Olive, and letters from an older man, George Harrison, to his son, Paul. In theory, if we are astute enough, we should have all the information we need to solve the crime when it finally takes place.
We learn a lot from all the letters about the relationship between an older man and his young wife, information that is destined to be sent to Sir Gilbert Pugh, Director of Public Prosecutions, which will ultimately lead to a murder conviction and a hanging.
Robert Eustace, the pen name for Eustace Robert Burton, a doctor and a writer of crime and mystery novels himself, was credited by Dorothy with supplying her with the plot idea for The Documents in the Case and with also giving her the supporting medical and scientific details to use.
The concept for the book was based on the ingenious idea of giving the reader all the evidence that the DPP will trawl through before deciding whether there is a case to answer.
I think Dorothy makes a success of this because she is a superb writer. Some of the letters written by the spinster, Agatha Milsom, who is working as housekeeper to the married couple, Mr and Mrs Harrison, that she sent regularly to her sister, Olive, reminded me of the letters in Jane Austen’s novels, written by characters to each other that help to move the plot forward without every scene having to be played out. Using the multiple viewpoints of the letter writers not only establishes their own characters with the reader, but also reveals their real opinions of the other characters.
My only, very slight criticism of the book is that the scientific evidence put before the reader at the end of the story was lengthy and hard for a non-scientist, such as myself, to understand completely. But I mention this as just the faintest of criticisms because I still persevered and read through it all and I think I just about understood it.
Sayers was given the idea for The Documents in the Case by a doctor friend
The story is essentially about people and their relationships and reveals how people see things very differently. The fact that there is a murder and therefore a whodunit element to the story was a bonus for me. Without it, there wouldn’t have been much incentive to read all the letters and statements!
Pulling out the essential truth about the case from each character’s version of events is a task that falls to the victim’s son, Paul, with the reader going along for the ride. I found The Documents in the Case to be a compelling story and a real page turner and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
It transpires that the victim died as a result of being poisoned by a substance that could either have been administered deliberately, or that they could have consumed it accidentally. It falls to scientific analysis of the poison to prove whether it was administered to the victim deliberately, or whether it could have been present in food naturally, and it is not easy for the pathologist to find out the truth.
Sadly, Dorothy is said to have been disappointed with the way The Documents in the Case turned out and she confessed to wishing she had done better with the brilliant plot she had been given by her doctor and writer friend, Eustace.
In my opinion she did extremely well with it, but it is up to other readers to pronounce their own, final judgments.
An award
winning masterpiece by the Queen of Crime
The latest HarperCollins reprint of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha
Christies’s sixth novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, was voted ‘the best crime
novel ever’ by the British Crime Writers’ Association in 2013.
Published in
1926, the book remains Agatha’s best known and most controversial novel because
of its ingenious final twist, which had a significant impact on the detective
fiction genre and has been imitated by many other writers since.
Agatha, who
died on 12 January, 1976 - 47 years ago today - has become famous for being the supreme
exponent of the old-fashioned English crime novel. Her skill in constructing
complex and puzzling plots and her ability to deceive readers until the very
last page, or paragraph, are unequalled.
But this
third Poirot novel, narrated by the local physician, Doctor Sheppard, in the
absence of Captain Hastings, who has gone to start a new life in the Argentine,
is considered by many readers and critics to be her masterpiece.
Wealthy
businessman turned country squire Roger Ackroyd lives in a charming English
country village, where dark secrets and dangerous emotions lurk beneath the
apparently calm surface.
When Ackroyd
is murdered, stabbed in the neck while sitting in his study after a dinner
party at his home, there are, as usual, plenty of suspects.
Poirot, who
has just come to live in the village, after retiring to grow marrows,
lives next door to Dr Sheppard. He is asked by a member of Ackroyd’s family to
investigate the murder because they are worried the police will get it wrong. Suspicion
has fallen on Ackroyd’s stepson, Ralph, who is a popular young man locally.
Agatha Christie died 47 years ago today at the age of 85
After many
twists and turns, Poirot gathers all the suspects together in his sitting room
after dinner one night and reveals the extraordinary and unexpected identity of
the killer.
According to
The Home of Agatha Christie, the author’s own website, The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd was ‘the book that changed Agatha Christie’s career’. It was the first
of her novels to be published by William Collins, which later became part of
HarperCollins, who remain Agatha’s publishers today and attracted enormous
attention in the media at the time.
Following her death, Agatha Christie's body was buried four days later after a service at St
Mary’s Church in the village of Cholsey in Oxfordshire.
The
inscription on her tombstone is a quotation from Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie
Queen:
‘Sleepe
after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after
war, death after life, does greatly please.’
A ‘creepy’ Christmas story with all the classic festive
ingredients
John Jefferson Farjeon was a journalist who went on to be a successful novelist
When a group of passengers trapped on a snowbound train on
Christmas Eve decide to take their chances in the ‘curtain of whirling white’
to try to find shelter, the scene is set for an intriguing seasonal mystery.
No one answers the bell at the first house they find, but
when they try the door handle it turns and they stumble inside with relief. The
fires are lit, the table is set for tea, but surprisingly there is nobody at
home.
It is obvious the occupants would not have ventured out in
such extreme weather conditions unless there had been an emergency and the
house has clearly been prepared for guests, so despite uncomfortable feelings
of guilt, the train travellers warm themselves by the fire, eat the tea that
has been prepared and set out to solve the mystery.
The main sleuthing brain belongs to an elderly gentleman, Mr
Edward Maltby, of the Royal Psychical Society, who uses a mixture of reasoned
logic and psychic intuition to try to work out what has happened to the
occupants of the house.
He is ably assisted by a bright young man, David Carrington
and his cheerful sister, Lydia, who has practical skills. A chorus girl, Jessie,
who has fallen in the snow and sprained her ankle, a young clerk called Thomson
who succumbs to ‘flu, Hopkins, an elderly bore, and Smith, a rough man who
turns out to be a criminal, complete the Christmas house party.
Mystery in White is published as a British Library Crime Classic
The author of Mystery in White, Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, was
a crime and mystery novelist, playwright, and screen writer. Born in 1883,
Farjeon worked for ten years for Amalgamated Press in London before going
freelance. He went on to become the author of more than 60 crime and mystery novels,
short story collections and plays.
He was a major figure during the Golden Age of murder
mysteries between the two world wars and Dorothy L Sayers praised him for being
‘quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures.’
Farjeon was named after his maternal grandfather, Joseph
Jefferson, who was an American actor. His father, Benjamin Farjeon, was a
successful novelist, one of his brothers was a composer, another a drama critic
and director, and his sister, Eleanor Farjeon, wrote poems, including the words
for the hymn, Morning Has Broken.
Originally published in 1937, Mystery in White was
republished as a British Library Crime Classic in 2014. Like most Golden Age
mysteries, it has a satisfying, logical conclusion, brought about by the deductive
powers of Mr Maltby and the heroics of David.
At the end of the story, the police inspector, who manages to
reach the house on Christmas Day, remarks to his sergeant: “Four murders in a
dozen hours! I reckon I’ve earned my bit of turkey.”
When the owners of the house return they are happy to
forgive the intrusion by the party from the train. As Lydia had said earlier to
the chorus girl, Jessie: “Suppose this house belonged to you and you returned
to it after the world’s worst snowstorm, would you rather find your larder
empty or seven skeletons?"
Campion
risks his life to try to bring an audacious killer to justice
The Vintage edition of Death of a Ghost
Death
of a Ghost, Margery Allingham’s sixth novel to feature the gentleman adventurer Albert
Campion, was first published in the UK in 1934.
In
a note about Campion at the beginning of the book, the author observes that her
hero is an adventurer, whose exploits are sometimes picaresque, as in Mystery
Mile and Sweet Danger, but he sometimes faces grave difficulties, as in Police
at the Funeral. She warns that Death of a Ghost falls into the second category.
When
the story starts, preparations are being made for a party at the London home of
John Lafcadio, an artist who has been dead for 18 years. It is the eve of the
annual ceremony for the unveiling of one of the series of 12 paintings he has left
behind in a bid to keep his memory alive.
Campion,
who is a friend of the painter’s widow, Belle, visits her the day before the
ceremony and attends the unveiling occasion the following evening. When the
ceremony is interrupted by a daring and particularly brutal murder, Campion
calls in his good friend, Inspector Stanislaus Oates to investigate.
Suspicion
falls on a member of the family, but the police can’t find enough proof to make
an arrest. But when another murder is committed at the property, Campion decides
to investigate for himself to help his old friend, Belle.
I
found the novel slow at first, while lots of characters were being introduced
and described. The action didn’t really get under way until page 50.
Throughout
the novel, Campion seems passive, not behaving at all like the action man that
he was in Sweet Danger.
In
another departure from her previous stories, Margery reveals that Campion has
guessed the identity of the killer and names the person about 100 pages from the end of the book. He
says he has no means of proving it and fears for Belle’s safety, lamenting to
Inspector Oates that he is being outwitted by the killer.
Campion
seems strangely trusting to accept an invitation for a drink at the suspect’s
apartment and then to go out to dinner with a person he feels sure has committed
two murders.
Peter Davison played Albert Campion in a BBC TV adaptation of Death of a Ghost
He
allows himself to fall into a trap set for him by the suspect and then the
action heats up with Campion’s life in danger.
The
writer Margery Allingham was born in 1904 in London and began writing at the
age of eight when she had a story published in a magazine.
Her
first novel was published when she was 19, but she did not make her
breakthrough as a crime writer until her novel, The Crime at Black Dudley, was
published in 1929. This introduced her series detective, Albert Campion, even
though he appeared only as a minor character in her first book.
He
was at first thought to be a parody of Dorothy L Sayers’s hero, Lord Peter
Wimsey, but Campion matured as the series of books progressed and proved there
was a lot more to him, becoming increasingly popular with readers.
Margery
Allingham is regarded as one of the four great Queens of Crime from the Golden
Age of detective fiction. One of her fellow Queens of Crime, Agatha Christie, once
said of the author: “Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light.”
Reviewers
have identified Death of A Ghost as a proper detective story rather than a high-spirited
thriller, but it differs from other detective stories of the time by having the
sleuth identify the killer and share his knowledge with the reader considerably
before the end of the book. The reader must wait for proof that Campion is right
and to find out whether the police will have enough evidence to arrest the suspect
and bring him to justice. But like all good mystery writers, Margery keeps a
few surprises up her sleeve until the end of the story.
Death
of a Ghost was filmed for the BBC in 1960, when Campion was played by Bernard
Horstall, and then again in 1989, when the role was played by Peter Davison.
Vintage
Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group, have now republished all
Margery’s novels featuring her series detective Albert Campion.
Novelist
draws on her love for New Zealand and the theatre
Vintage Murder begins as Roderick Alleyn makes a train journey across New Zealand
Ngaio Marsh
transports her upper class, English sleuth, Roderick Alleyn, to her native New
Zealand in Vintage Murder, her fifth novel to feature the Scotland Yard
detective.
Alleyn is on
holiday while recovering from an operation and the story begins as he makes a
long journey by train across New Zealand. On the train, he encounters a
travelling theatrical troupe and among them is Susan Max, a character actress he
had met in Enter a Murderer, Ngaio’s second novel. The detective had encountered
the actress while he was investigating a murder that occurred on stage during the
performance of a play at a West End theatre.
He gets talking
to different members of the troupe, which is run by Incorporated Playhouses,
and it is not far into the story when Alfred Meyer, the owner of Incorporated
Playhouses, who is married to the leading lady, Carolyn Dacres, reveals to Alleyn
that someone has tried to push him off the train.
After the
train has arrived at its destination, Carolyn invites Alleyn to see the first
night of the play and to her birthday celebrations with the rest of the company
on the stage afterwards. At the party, as a surprise for his wife, Meyer has
arranged for a jeroboam of champagne to descend gently on to the dinner table from
above, but something goes horribly wrong and the theatrical manager is killed.
The latest HarperCollins edition of Ngaio Marsh's Vintage Murder
It soon
becomes obvious that the mechanism set up for the stunt has been tampered with
and Alleyn is invited by the local police to sit in on their investigation. He sets
aside his holiday plans to try to help them catch the murderer.
Vintage
Murder, which was published in 1937, enables Ngaio Marsh to describe the
scenery of her homeland as seen through Alleyn’s eyes. He meets a Māori doctor,
Rangi Te Pokiha, and buys a Māori fertility pendant, a ‘tiki’, which plays an
important part in the plot.
Vintage
Murder was one of four Alleyn novels adapted for New Zealand television in
1977, when the role of Alleyn was played by the actor George Baker.
Ngaio’s
inspiration for the travelling theatrical troupe was the Alan Wilkie Company,
which she was once a part of, so it is not surprising that the characters and
their behaviour come across as so real in the story.
The story
does consist of a long series of interviews conducted by Alleyn along with the
New Zealand police officers, which many on line reviewers have complained about,
but I still think it is a well written novel that presents a good mystery for
the armchair detective to try to solve, and I would recommend it.
Author
departs from tradition by letting her detective fall in love
Strong Poison is the fifth of Dorothy L Sayers's Wimsey novels
Dorothy L
Sayers allows her noble sleuth to have a love interest in Strong Poison, the
fifth novel she wrote featuring the exploits of amateur detective Lord Peter
Wimsey.
The author
introduces the character of Harriet Vane, a crime novelist, who, like Wimsey,
is Oxford educated and has had an unhappy time romantically.
When Wimsey
sees Harriet Vane for the first time, she is in the dock, accused of the murder
of her ex-lover, the poet Philip Boyes.
Strong
Poison, which was published in 1930, is considered to be a major departure for a
Golden Age mystery as it shows the detective falling in love with a woman
accused of the murder that is central to the plot.
Dorothy L
Sayers fans have speculated that the writer modelled Harriet Vane on herself. The
writer had suffered a romantic disappointment and by creating the long-drawn-out
romance between Harriet Vane and Wimsey, which was to run through four novels,
it allowed her to have a vicarious affair with the detective herself, far-fetched
though this might seem now.
Dorothy had
been very impressed with the novel Trent’s Last Case by E C Bentley, published
in 1913. In the story, the detective, Philip Trent, falls in love with the wife
of the murder victim.
Right until the end of the novel the reader does not know
for certain that the wife is not the murderer. E C Bentley’s novel was intended
as a send up of the classic crime story and it also involves the hero detective
identifying the wrong person as the murderer close to the end of the story,
completely at odds with the conventions of the genre. But Dorothy, along with
many other readers, really liked the novel and went on record as saying that
Bentley’s novel ‘holds a very special place in the history of detective fiction.’
In Strong
Poison, the victim, Harriet’s ex-lover Philip Boyes, has died from arsenic poisoning.
He has attempted to engineer a reconciliation with Harriet on the night of his
death and she has given him a cup of coffee while listening to what he had to
say. She is accused of the murder because she is found to have bought poison
under an assumed name. She has claimed this was to test one of the plot points
in the crime novel she is currently writing.
Sayers herself had suffered a romantic disappointment
Fortunately,
the trial results in a hung jury and the judge has to order a retrial. With no
time to lose, Wimsey visits Harriet in prison to tell her he is convinced of
her innocence and is determined to catch the real murderer. He also asks her to
marry him, but she turns him down politely.
The jury has
failed to return a unanimous verdict because one person sitting on it could not
bring herself to believe in Harriet’s guilt. This is Miss Katharine Climpson, a
spinster who, coincidentally, sometimes works for Wimsey by carrying out
inquiries and undercover work because she has to live in difficult financial circumstances
and needs to earn some money.
Wimsey deploys
her to gather evidence for his inquiry and, in one hilarious scene, she is
obliged to pose as a medium and hold a séance to obtain the information he
needs. Miss Climpson first appeared doing undercover work for Wimsey in the
novel, Unnatural Death, two years before Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, also a
spinster with a talent for detection, was introduced on the crime fiction
scene.
As well as being
an intriguing mystery, Strong Poison explores some of the issues of the time,
such as sex before marriage and the double standards that were applied to the
behaviour of men and women. The novel is intricately plotted and written in a
very entertaining style and I would highly recommend that you read it.
Remembering an early writer of the police procedural
The British Library Crime Classics edition
Bats in the Belfry, the 13th novel in the series featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard by E C R Lorac, has a complex plot with the focus on the way detectives in the 1930s used standard police procedure to solve cases.
First published in 1937, the novel may seem rather dated in 2022, but it is fast moving and presents a challenging puzzle for the reader. It was reissued in 2018 by the British Library in their Crime Classics series and is now also available in large print.
Bats in the Belfry is the story of a failed novelist and his wife, a successful actress, who lead separate lives in their smart house in London. When the husband is called away suddenly to Paris, he seems to disappear completely. His suitcase and passport are later found in a sinister artist’s studio, the Belfry, in a dilapidated house in Notting Hill.
The novelist’s friends set out to investigate what has happened to him but find things at the Belfry are so sinister they decide to enlist the help of the police and Chief Inspector Macdonald, already an established series character, takes over the case.
By the time
Lorac wrote Bats in the Belfry, she was an experienced writer of whodunnits and
had developed the skill of being able to shift suspicion from one character to
another while keeping up the interest for the reader.
The opening
scene introduces most of the characters who will play a central part in the
story. They have gathered together following a funeral and before long the
conversation turns to the subject of how to dispose of a body. This conversation
contains a vital clue for those alert enough to spot and remember it…
E C R Lorac was the pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett, who died 64 years ago today. She wrote under the pseudonyms E C R Lorac, Carol Carnac and Mary Le Bourne during the Golden Age of Detective fiction.
Lorac
chose her pseudonym because it was the name Carol, which was part of her name,
spelt backwards. Her first detective novel, Murder on the Burrows, which
introduced Chief Inspector Macdonald, was published in 1931 when she was 37. She wrote 48 mysteries as E C R Lorac and 23 as Carol Carnac along with other novels, short stories and radio and stage plays, before her death in 1958.
Campion meets a flame-haired beauty who is a most unconventional heroine
A Vintage Books edition of Sweet Danger
There is the first sign of a love interest for the mysterious Albert Campion in Sweet Danger, the fifth novel written by Margery Allingham about her hero’s adventures.
Campion meets the plucky Amanda Fitton, a beautiful teenage girl, who works with him to thwart a deadly enemy intent on defrauding her family of its inheritance. The novel is full of action, danger and eccentric characters and ends with the most delicate of hints that there might be romance in the future for the noble adventurer, Campion.
Sweet Danger was first published in 1933 in the UK. However, it is not a typical novel of its time. Amanda Fitton is not a damsel in distress for Campion to rescue. She is a hard-up and not very well dressed 17-year-old, who is interested in experimenting with radio signals and electricity.
Campion has been tasked by the British Government with finding proof of ownership of Averna, a small, oil rich principality on the Adriatic, which has become a vital port after an earthquake has given it a natural harbour. He goes to the village of Pontisbright in the depths of the Sussex countryside, where he meets Amanda and her family who, as rightful heirs to the principality, insist on joining Campion’s quest.
Although Campion and his friends agree to join forces with the Fitton family, whose ancestors were given the principality way back in history, an unscrupulous financier and his hired thugs are also on the trail. The family suffer violent attacks and Campion’s friends are tied up in sacks and shot at, while Campion himself goes missing.
During a showdown with the main villain, Amanda saves Campion’s life, but she has been shot herself in the process. Thankfully, her wound is not life threatening and in the last pages of the book she asks him to take her into partnership in his business ‘later on’…
Allingham's writing was notable for her insight into character
In 2022, Sweet Danger might seem like a far-fetched story to modern crime fiction fans, but I think it is well written and a gripping page-turner and still worth reading.
Margery Allingham, who died on this day in 1966, was a prolific writer during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. She left a legacy of 18 Albert Campion mysteries, six volumes of short stories about the detective and many stand-alone novels, novellas and volumes of short stories.
Margery died of cancer in hospital in Colchester six weeks after her 62nd birthday. She was in the process of writing her last novel, Cargo of Eagles, and had mapped out the story long before her death. Her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, was able to finish it, as she herself would have done, following her plan.
In a preface to Mr Campion’s Clowns, an omnibus of novels by Margery Allingham, published in 1967, Youngman Carter paid tribute to his late wife as ‘a generous, kind and courageous woman with a rare gift for friendship’.
Margery showed wonderful insight into character and her books abound in witty and accurate observations of people. As she matured as a writer, her books became deeper and started to encompass significant themes, such as love and justice, good and evil, and illusion and truth. Her works have now attained classic status and she has, at times been compared with Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson
Vintage Books, part of the Penguin Random House Group, have now republished all Margery’s novels featuring her series detective Albert Campion.
The creator of academic sleuth Dr Priestley also invented Eric the Skull
Cecil Street, whose pen names included John Rhode
The writer known as John Rhode, who wrote 72 detective novels featuring the academic turned amateur detective, Dr Priestley, was born as Cecil John Charles Street 138 years ago today in Gibraltar.
Street also wrote 61 Desmond Merrion crime novels under the pseudonym Miles Burton and several detective stories under the pen name Cecil Waye.
He served as an artillery officer in the British Army and during World War I became a propagandist for MI7, rising to the rank of Major.
After the war, Street worked in both London and Dublin as an Information Officer during the Irish War of Independence.
Street produced his first detective novel, The Paddington Mystery, featuring Dr Priestley, under the pseudonym John Rhode in 1925. He then wrote at least one Dr Priestley novel a year, sometimes more.
Writing as Miles Burton, his Desmond Merrion novels began in 1930 and went on until 1960. He also wrote other non-series novels, short stories, radio plays, stage plays and non-fiction.
The Dr Priestley books are classics of scientific detection, with the elderly academic demonstrating how apparently impossible crimes have been carried out.
In The
Paddington Mystery, a young man, Harold Merefield, returns to his lodgings in
the early hours after visiting a night club to find the dead body of a man
lying on his bed. Although an inquest gives a verdict of death by natural
causes, Harold finds his reputation is tarnished as a result of all the
publicity and he is determined to solve the mystery to prove the death had
nothing to do with him.
The great Dorothy L Sayers, pictured with Eric the Skull
He turns to
an old friend of his father’s, Professor Lancelot Priestley, a mathematician, for
help. Dr Priestley is an armchair detective, who sometimes helps the police. He
solves mysteries through logical reasoning, guided by facts and facts alone,
not by flashes of intuition or guesswork. Some of the scenes, where Dr
Priestley, does most of the talking because he hates to be interrupted, seem long
and unexciting, but as he considers each fact on its merits and chooses to accept
it, or discard it, he takes the characters and the readers nearer and nearer to
the truth.
Dr Priestley
was an immediate success with the public and Street, as John Rhode, quickly produced
another six novels about his cases.
By 1930,
Street was no longer just a distinguished, retired army Major, he had written
25 books under various pseudonyms and he was still only 45 years old.
Street was a founding member of the prestigious Detection Club in 1930, where crime writers dined together regularly to discuss their craft. He edited Detection Medley, the first anthology of stories by members of the club and also contributed to the club’s first two round robin detective novels, The Floating Admiral and Ask a Policeman, along with other distinguished writers such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers.
Perhaps Street’s most important contribution to the club was Eric the Skull, which he wired up with lights so that the eye sockets glowed red during the initiation ceremony for new members. Eric is said to participate in the initiation rituals for new members to this day.
Cecil Street died at the age of 80 in 1964 in Eastbourne.
First
appearance by author turned sleuth Roger Sheringham
The paperback edition of The Layton Court Mystery
The Layton
Court Mystery, published in 1925, was the first detective novel by journalist
Anthony Berkeley Cox, who was to become one of the founding members of the
elite Detection Club.
His series
detective, Roger Sheringham, is one of the guests at acountry house party being held at a Jacobean
mansion called Layton Court. The character, who is an author, was to feature in another ten detective novels
and many short stories by Berkeley.
The party is being hosted by Victor Stanworth, a genial and hospitable man, aged
about 60, who has taken Layton Court for the summer to enable him to entertain
his friends in style.
At the start
of the book, Sheringham has been enjoying Stanworth’s generous hospitality for
three days until the party is given the grim news during breakfast that their
host appeared to have locked himself in the library and shot himself.
Sheringham
is not convinced that his host has committed suicide and sets out to
investigate the mystery himself, using his friend, Alec Grierson, who is also
in the party, as his ‘Watson’.
Anthony
Berkeley was just one of the pen names used by Anthony Berkeley Cox, who died
51 years ago today (9 March 1971). He also wrote novels under the names Francis
Iles and A. Monmouth Platts.
Anthony
Berkeley Cox helped found the Detection Club in 1930, along with Agatha
Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. It was to become an elite dining club for
British mystery writers, which met in London, under the presidency of G. K.
Chesterton. There was an initiation ritual and an oath had to be sworn by new
members promising not to rely on Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo
Jumbo, Jiggery Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God in their work.
Berkeley Cox wrote 19 crime novels before returning to journalism
In The
Layton Court Mystery, Sheringham does not conceal anything from his friend,
Alec Grierson, and therefore the reader has the same information to help them
solve the crime as the detective himself.
I found The
Layton Court Mystery unexciting and stilted at the beginning, but the writing improved
a lot as the book progressed.
I thought Roger
Sheringham had the potential to be a good character, although some of the rather
fatuous dialogue at the beginning reminded me of Lord Peter Wimsey at the
start of Whose Body?the first novel by
Dorothy L Sayers that he appeared in.
Sheringham
sometimes tells Grierson what detectives in books would do in particular
circumstances, showing that the character, like his creator Berkeley, is a
devotee of the genre.
The amateur
detective jumps to a few wrong conclusions along the way and
follows up each of his theories until he accepts that they are disproved. He
tells the other characters that he is asking questions because he has ‘natural
curiosity’, to cover up the fact he is interrogating people he doesn’t really
know, which was not considered good form at the time.
He sometimes
says he is looking for material for his next novel and one of the characters
actually says to him: ‘Everything’s “copy” to you, you mean?’
He also
finds clues, such as a footprint, a hair, a piece of a broken vase and a trace
of face powder, to help him work out what has taken place in the library.
The Poisoned Chocolates Case sold more than a million copies
Anthony
Berkeley Cox was born in Watford in 1893 and educated at Sherborne School and
University College, Oxford. After serving as an officer in the First World War,
he began writing for magazines, such as Punch and The Humorist.
He wrote 19
crime novels between 1925 and 1939 before returning to journalism and writing
for the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. From 1950 to 1970, the year
before he died, he contributed to the Manchester Guardian, later, the Guardian
newspaper.
Berkeley’s
amateur detective, Sheringham, had his most famous outing in The Poisoned
Chocolates Case, which was published in 1929. The novel received rapturous
reviews and sold more than one million copies. It is now regarded as a classic
of the Golden Age of detective fiction.
At times, The
Layton Court Mystery reminded me of Trent’s Last Caseby E C Bentley, published in 1913, which was
originally intended to be a skit on the detective story genre. Like Trent,
Sheringham doesn’t actually solve the case until the real murderer confesses to
him right at the end.
However, by
the end of The Layton Court Mystery, I had taken to Roger Sheringham and I now look
forward to reading the next book in the series.
The Layton
Court Mystery was first published in London by Herbert Jenkins in 1925 and in
New York by Doubleday, Doran and Company in 1929. It was republished by
Spitfire Publications Ltd in 2021.
A detective
novelist who brilliantly describes backstage life
Ngaio Marsh, who
was one of the leading female detective novelists of her time, died on this day
– 18 February – in 1982 in her native New Zealand.
Ngaio began
writing detective novels in 1931 after moving to London to start up an interior
decorating business. Stuck in her
basement flat on a very wet Saturday afternoon she decided to have a go at
writing a detective story and came up with the idea for her sleuth, Roderick Alleyn, a gentleman detective.
Ngaio Marsh came to be seen as one of the Queens of Crime
She sat down
to write what was to be the first of a series of 32 crime novels featuring Alleyn,
who she named after an Elizabethan actor, Edward Alleyn. Her detective was to work
for the Metropolitan Police in London, even though he is the younger brother of
a baronet.
Her second
novel, Enter a Murderer, published in 1935, and several others, are set in the
world of the theatre, which Ngaio knew well as she was also an actress,
director and playwright at times during her life.
After leaving
school she had studied painting before joining a touring theatre company. She
became a member of an art association in New Zealand and continued to exhibit
her paintings with them from the 1920s onwards.
Ngaio allows her
detective, Alleyn, to meet and fall in love with an artist, Agatha Troy, in her 1938 novel, Artists in Crime.
She directed
many productions of Shakespeare’s plays in New Zealand and Australia and the
430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand is
named in her honour.
In her 1946
short story, I Can Find My Way Out, which features Alleyn, Ngaio once again
uses the theatre as her setting. A new playwright, Anthony Gill, is waiting
nervously for the premiere of his first play at The Jupiter Theatre in London.
The female
lead, Coralie Bourne, has been kind to him and advised him on his play, but the
male lead, Canning Cumberland, is known to have a drinking problem and can be
unpredictable, which worries Gill. Two of the other actors also resent Cumberland,
one because he was given the best part and the other because he was given the
best dressing room.
Meanwhile,
Roderick Alleyn and his now wife Troy are entertaining a friend, Lord Michael
Lamprey, for dinner. He is keen to join the police but his conversation with Alleyn
is constantly interrupted by phone calls that are actually meant for a delivery
firm. When one of the callers asks if they can deliver a suitcase to playwright Anthony Gill at the Jupiter Theatre, Lord Michael thinks it would be fun to
take the job as he has been unable to get a ticket to see the play.
Sophie Hannah's collection of stories is published by Apollo
Before he
reaches the theatre, the case falls open and he discovers a false ginger beard
and moustache, a black hat, a black overcoat with a fur collar and a pair of
black gloves.
On an impulse
Lord Michael puts the whole outfit on and insists on being allowed to deliver
the case in person to the playwright backstage.
As Coralie makes
one of her exits from the stage, she sees him standing in the wings wearing the
beard and black clothes and faints. The male lead, Cumberland, also reacts with
horror when he sees him and locks himself in his dressing room.
Lord Michael
continues to watch the play from the wings with fascination, although he becomes
increasingly aware of the smell of gas. Eventually, he traces the smell to one
of the dressing rooms, gains access and drags out the unconscious occupant, but
sadly it is too late to save him.
He rings
Alleyn and the detective arrives at the theatre with his men, where it does not
take him long to discover that one of the actors has been murdered.
In just 18
pages, Ngaio sets up the story, establishes the characters and their
relationships, brilliantly describes the dressing rooms, equipment and
atmosphere backstage, drawing on her experience of the theatre, and allows
Alleyn to solve the crime.
Along with
her fellow Queens of Crime, Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L
Sayers, Ngaio was to dominate the genre of crime fiction from the 1930s onwards
with her novels, short stories and plays.
In 1948 Ngaio
was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in
connection with drama and literature in New Zealand. She became a Dame
Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts in the
1966 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Ngaio’s autobiography,
Black Beech and Honeydew was published in 1965. She was inducted into the
Detection Club in 1974 and received the Grand Master Award for lifetime
achievement as a detective novelist from the Mystery Writers of America.
Her 32nd and
final Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was completed only a few weeks before her
death. The story revolves around one of her greatest theatrical passions,
Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.
Ngaio died in
her home town of Christchurch and was buried at the Church of the Holy
Innocents, Mount Peel.
The Ngaio
Marsh Award is given annually to the writer of the best New Zealand mystery,
crime or thriller novel. Her home in Christchurch is now a museum and displays her
collection of antiques. On her desk lies her fountain pen filled with green ink,
which was her preferred writing tool.
Ngaio Marsh’s
32 Roderick Alleyn crime novels and her collections of short stories are available in a variety of
formats from or
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.jpg "Sayers herself had suffered a romantic disappointment")
.jpg "Allingham's writing was notable for her insight into character")
.jpg "Cecil Street, whose pen names included John Rhode")
