A review of The Undetective by Bruce Graeme – 231102
I have come across the works of Bruce Graeme, a pseudonym of Graham Montague Jeffries, through following his series of bibliomysteries featuring bookshop owner, Theodore Terhune, which Moonstone Press had reissued. The Undetective, originally published in 1962, again has books and the book industry at its heart, but is a standalone novel which seemed to have slid into unwarranted obscurity, once more to be rescued by Moonstone Press. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, written in an undemanding style which I raced through.
As a piece of entertainment it has much to commend it. However, if I was to be overly critical it came across to me as a mish-mash of good eyes which Graeme did not quite gell into a satisfying whole. In essence, there are three themes running through it. First of all, it can be seen as a satirical take on the publishing industry, but it is also partly a police procedural and partly a murder mystery. It also delivers quite a twist at the end and just to spice things up it features the Crime Writers Association of which Jefferies was Chairman in 1956 and namechecks several of its members.
The story features Iain Carter, a struggling crime fiction writer, who has the luck to have Edward as a brother-in-law, a slightly indiscreet detective whose inside knowledge Carter decides to use for a new series of books. He develops a bumbling detective superintendent based on Edward’s boss, Waller, the antithesis of a brilliant intuitive sleuth, an undetective you might say. Published under a pseudonym, John Ky Lowell, it and its successors are a great success, although the police are down on an author who has chosen to show them in such a poor light.
As an experiment, Carter goes to elaborate and extraordinary lengths to keep the identity of John Ky Lowell a secret, revealing how complicit the publishing industry can be in pulling off such a sleight of hand. His troubles start when the tax man, inevitably, interests himself in Lowell’s success and earnings and are exacerbated by the murder of a bookmaker, Naughton. To his horror, Carter learns from his indiscreet brother-in-law who is investigating the case with Waller, that Lowell is a prime suspect.
The reasoning behind the police’s suspicions, apart from having an animus against the author, boils down to the need for a clever mind to pull off a murder and the victim had in his possession a page of a newspaper carrying an advert for Lowell’s latest book. As a piece of plotting to bring a suspect into a story, its is as wafer thin as the mint that finished off Mr Creosote. Nevertheless, Carter goes to elaborate and humorous lengths in staging break ins and doctoring evidence to divert suspicion from him/Lowell, but only succeeds in implicating Edward.
With one last throw of the dice and a rather mawkish one at that, Carter succeeds in placing the blame for Naughton’s death elsewhere and we can breath easily or can we? Graeme is not finished yet and in the final chapter comes up with a major plot twist which involves a motive that just comes out of nowhere with the reader having no inkling that it might have been plausible. A fair clued murder mystery this is not.
Publishing books under a pseudonym is no crime, even if the author has good reasons to keep their identity secret, providing all appropriate taxes are paid to the authorities. The perceptive reader might begin to wonder why Carter was going to extraordinary lengths to conceal his identity and whether the police had a more cogent reason for linking Lowell to Naughton’s murder. Whether deliberately or not, Graeme does not really tie these strands together convincingly.
The denouement, while extraordinary, as a consequence appears to come out of nowhere, leaving Edward with a moral dilemma that family honour resolves. Graeme seems to be playing with some interesting ideas without being able to pull them together into a satisfying whole. Nevertheless, as a piece of entertainment, it is first rate.