Triple Quest

A review of Triple Quest by E R Punshon – 240409

The thirty-fourth and penultimate novel in Punshon’s long running Bobby Owen series was originally published in 1955 and has been reissued by Dean Street Press. As I approach the end of the series I have been eking the books out, savouring them like a gourmand, and in this novel Punshon does not disappoint. It is a complex story that has some twists and turns and a culprit whose identity is not obvious until the end.

Whether Punshon knew the end was nigh, by this time he was eighty-three, but he pulls out all the stops. There are some memorable characters, not least the wonderfully named Marmaduke Groan, a private investigator who comes to Owen with a story of a missing arts critic, Alfred Atts, but who is unable or unwilling to disclose the whole truth, and the art gallery attendant, Early Hyams, who reveres the paintings under his charge and despises the hoi polloi who give them barely a glance. There are also some picaresque characters like Monkey Baron and Irish Joe who aare no stereotypical ciphers but light up the page when they appear.

The dialogue is on occasions witty and there are some dramatic and thrilling episodes to enjoy. Owen is never one to pull out of a physical confrontation and manages to get the better of his unsavoury opponents from the demi-monde when he is set upon. He also is willing to risk his life by entering into a burning building to save Mrs Taylor who had only just finished demonstrating her displeasure at his appearance by launching a hail of missiles at him and threatening to shoot. Owen is also given the opportunity to demonstrate his proficiency as a lock picker.

Punshon’s narrative also shines a fascinating light on the times. The Owens have a new toy, a television set, and Atts is a new breed of person, a television celebrity who has graced the new fangled screens to talk about art. Not that Bobby Owen needs any crash course on how to appreciate art. Punshon’s sleuth has always been a little different from the normal policeman, educated, albeit with a third without honours from Oxford, from an aristocratic background, a connection that he has fought hard to play down during his career, with a tenacious desire to uncover the truth and the invaluable ability to be at the right place at the time.

He is also highly cultured with a love of art, a trait that pays dividends in a book which, following on from The Golden Dagger and Diabolic Candelabra, has an objet d’art at its heart. He remembers on a previous visit to the South Bank Gallery that Rembrandt’s Girl Peeling Apples made a deep impression upon him, but looking at it now it seemed an inferior work. Owen’s nose for the discrepancies in these feelings, coupled with a tip on mahogany – the work was painted on a mahogany panel, the wood not being available during the painter’s lifetime – leads him to realise that there is something odd going on at the gallery, most likely the substitution of fakes for the real thing.

Was this what Arthur Atts had rumbled and was about to reveal in a much hyped lecture, bringing disrepute to the gallery and getting revenge on its director, Sir Walter Wyatt, who had beaten Atts to discovering the painting in the first place? Was this why he conveniently disappeared just before delivering the lecture and where was Jasmine, the impoverished artist with a talent for reproducing masters but an even greater talent for original works, and where was the original painting? A meaty triple quest for Owen, aided by the faithful Ford, to get his teeth into.

Atts has his own dark secret, an emotional entanglement, and Wyatt’s suspicious behaviour adds some complexity to the plot, resolved amusingly and embarrassingly for the director and prompting Owen to exercise an astonishingly direct form of art criticism. As the story settles down and moves towards its thrilling finale another two bodies are added to those of Atts and Jasmine who, unsurprisingly, have been murdered. The book ends on a pleasing emotional high as Bobby Owen is able to ensure pride of place for Jasmine’s astonishing portrait of the Montgomery’s children and a source of income for the impoverished couple.

As a book it is one of Punshon’s best, an astonishing achievement and a veritable tour de force.

A Telegram From Le Touquet

A review of A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude – 240406

A Telegram from Le Touquet, originally published in 1956, has been recently reissued as part of the excellent British Library Crime Classics series. Taxonomically it is the twenty-second and penultimate in John Bude’s long-running William Meredith series, but, in truth, he plays only a minor albeit vital part in the tale. The heavy lifting in the investigation on the French Riviera is conducted by Inspector Blampignon of the Sûreté National, who featured in Bude’s earlier Death on the Riviera (1952).

The book falls into two unequal parts. The first part is narrated by Nigel Derry through whose eyes we are introduced to the main characters of the story and begin to understand the tensions and emotional undercurrents that are bubbling to the surface at his aunt Gwenny’s country house that Easter. To his astonishment his desire to marry Sheila, Gwenny’s ward, is vetoed without an adequate explanation. Gammon, an old soak and a beau of Gwenny’s, seems to be falling out of favour with a younger, more dapper Frenchman now in tow, and begins to make a beeline for Gwenny’s dowdy and naïve sister, Deborah Gaye. And there is some mystery surrounding the bohemian artist, Skeet, who seems to have some kind of hold on Gwenny and is involved in a knife fight with her latest beau, an occurrence that decides Gwenny to shut up the house at short notice and decamp to her holiday home in the south of France.

Gwenny never gets there. Her body is found in a trunk by her servants, the Fougères. To their surprise they had received a telegram from her advising them instead of arriving on the Sunday she would not reach the house until the Tuesday. Nigel also received a telegram, the eponymous missive from Le Touquet, inviting him unexpectedly to join his aunt. Some incriminating evidence that links him to her murder is found in a car.

The second part of the novel, which describes the events leading up to the discovery of the murder, the subsequent investigation and the revealing of the culprit, is narrated in the third party and, oddly, having done much to focus attention on Derry and to implicate him in the murder, Bude quickly absolves him of any involvement which, together with the switch of narrative focus, gives the book a very disjointed feel.

To add to the feeling of disappointment the culprit is easy to spot, although the locus of the murder and the herculean efforts required to get the body to the south of France show an astonishing degree of ingenuity. The motive, Gwenny’s hostility to the proposed marriage and Skeet’s hold over her are only revealed after a telephone call, the contents of which are not disclosed to the reader at the time but are pulled out of the chapeau with a Gallic flourish at the grand reveal. That the nuts and bolts of the crime are only revealed through a confession and the culprit suffers an all too convenient heart attack which eliminates any issues over which jurisdiction should deal with the murder adds to an overwhelming sense of anticlimax.

Blampignon is about as far removed from Poirot as you can imagine. Portly, sweaty, energetic, only uttering the occasional “Eh bien”, “Mon Dieu” and “Merde” to indicate his Gallic origin, his approach is less about engaging the little grey cells as rolling his sleeves up and getting stuck in. As he remarks at the end, the murderers only real mistake was to send that telegram. Had they not, they could easily have got away with murder.

The book is an entertaining enough read and the first part allows Bude to round his characters in the reader’s mind, but there are too many unsatisfactory features to make it a true classic.

Israel Rank: The Autobiography Of A Criminal

A review of Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman – 24040

Originally published in 1907 and reissued by Dean Street Press, this book will be better known for being the basis of the 1949 Alec Guinness tour de force and the best Ealing Comedy film, Kind Hearts and Coronets. However, the book is radically different from the film. Instead of a farce we are presented with a deep dive into the mind of a social climbing serial killer and, perhaps more disturbingly, the forerunner of the murderous half-Italian of the film is a man who is undisputedly Jewish on his father’ side. His link to the Gascoyne aristocracy is through his mother.

The name of the protagonist, Israel Rank, has been chosen with great care. The forename leaves no question in the reader’s mind that he is of semitic stock, or Oriental as he prefers to call himself in the text, and the surname Rank speaks of his obsession with the class system and his overpowering desire to better himself and reclaim the aristocratic title that seemed so far from his grasp when he pored over the genealogical table that his father had preserved.

However, the overt Jewishness of the central character makes this book a rather uncomfortable read. Did Horniman intend it to be an antisemitic tale, designed to draw gasps of dismay and outrage from his Edwardian readership as a cynical outsider uses charm, trickery, and murder most foul to worm himself into the hear of the English aristocracy or was it intended to be a satire of antisemitism? At this distance it is hard to be sure and the way Rank introduced the deadly scarlet fever bacteria to a baby by wiping its face with an infected cloth reminiscent of the blood libel made me doubt my original feeling that it was satire. There is little doubt that antisemitic feeling was rife in Edwardian England and when satirical intent is not obvious or misses the mark, it can be as bad, if not worse, than its original target.

The book takes a long time to get going as it is as much about his social maneuverings to better himself by ingratiating himself into circles of increasing influence and importance, primarily through his association with three women, his childhood sweetheart, Sibella, his wife, the former Miss Gascoyne, whose brother he murdered, and his salvation, Esther Grey. Although we think we know how the book is to intend, and despite all his cleverness, Rank makes a series of catastrophic errors that quickly leads to his detection, Horniman does have one great surprise up his sleeve which he leaves until the last pages of this 400 plus page novel to reveal.

The problem with his plan, as Rank quickly begins to realise, is that the nearer he gets to the top of the succession tree and the more of the heirs who die in suspicious or unnatural circumstances, the greater the suspicion that will rest on the outsider who is charging towards the winning post from the back of the field. Not everything goes smoothly; an innocent verger is killed, drinking a cup of water laced with poison intended for the vicar.

Rank’s ruminations reveal a complex character. He abhors blood sports but is content to set about slaughtering his own limited field of victims, although almost, but not completely, drawing the line at physical violence. His preferred modus operandi is to set in motion a sequence of events that will lead to a fatal event, whether it is by poison, fire, or disease. Only in one instance does he deliver the final coup de grace.

Given the book’s age, it is clearly the forerunner of and likely to have been influential in later developments of the crime fiction genre such as the inverted murder mystery and the psychological murder mystery. For that reason alone it is worth a read. But it is also an entertaining enough story with a dramatic twist that, largely, stands on its own merits.

For those with highly attuned sensitivities, though, it comes with a health warning. Whether the anti-Italian sentiments in Robert Hamer’s film version occupy a higher moral high ground than Horniman’s antisemitism is a question for media studies students. DSP, in marketing it as Kind Hearts and Coronets, clearly think it does.

Murder By Burial

A review of Murder by Burial by Stanley Casson – 240330

Stanley Casson was a prominent British archaeologist in his day and I remember dipping into some of his works when I was studying Ancient History at university. Murder by Burial, originally published in 1938, is in truth not much of a murder mystery as there is really only one credible suspect. A third or, to be charitable, a 2.2 it is easy to see why having got the urge to dabble in crime fiction out of his system, he went on to concentrate on his day job.

The dangers associated with unguarded excavations is a theme that I have come across before, in Ngaio Marsh’s later Hand in Glove (1962) and archeology as a medium for a hoax in Chesterton’s earlier Curse of the Golden Cross (1926). That said, the method of dispatching the victim, an archaeological site salted with supposedly rare artefacts from the pre-Roman British era to whet the victim’s appetite such that he digs and stands in the exact spot necessary for the excavation to collapse and kill the archaeologist. It is a crime, once set up, that can be committed in absentia as the geological and gravitational forces will work on their own, providing the saboteur with the perfect alibi.

The victim is Canon Burbery, who is convinced that there are the remains of a British settlement associated with Cynobeline on the outskirts of Kynchester, and obtains permission to carry out an exploratory archaeological dig. At the same time Colonel Cackett is rallying the townsfolk to honour the Roman emperor, Claudius, as the bringer of civilisation to a barbaric Britain and is establishing a proto-Fascist group of locals who parade up and down the town. Cackett gets mixed up with some altogether more sinister individuals, particularly Captain Antrobus, and is strongarmed into storing guns, ammunition and hand grenades in a well.

There is a long-running sense of animus between Burbery and Cackett, the canon despising the latter’s academic pretensions, even going to the lengths of blackballing his application to join a distinguished academic society, while the Colonel seeks to gain his revenge by siting a statue of Claudius close to the archaeological site.

In tone, the book falls into two distinct parts. The first can be viewed as a witty, acerbic satire of English society, especially in a rural town where petty rivalries and jealousies are magnified out of proportion. There are some genuinely funny parts but there is also a darker side. Rather like Nicholas Blake in The Smiler with the Knife, published a year later, Casson recognizes that the threat to all that we hold dear lies not from the left but from the right with their faux patriotism and their glorification of strong leaders. There is no coincidence that the statue of Claudius when unveiled is making the Fascist salute. We may find their activities vaguely amusing, somewhat distasteful but we allow their canker to fester at our peril, a lesson as relevant today as it was in the lead up to the Second World War.

Once the canon is killed, the tone of the book shifts as it becomes a slightly more conventional whodunit. While the official line is that it was an unfortunate accident, the arrival of the Bowman brothers, Andrew an archaeologist and John an architect, prove, even to Inspector Meatyard’s satisfaction, that it was the result of an ingenious and deliberate booby trap, primed only by someone with engineering knowledge. The discovery of the firearms cooks the Colonel’s goose but he, conveniently, eludes justice and the truth is contained to those who need to know.

Meatyard is a fascinating and sympathetic policeman who is prone to moments of almost philosophic reflection who recognizes that successful detection is the result of teamwork between professionals and amateurs rather than down to the genius of one individual. There is also a fascinating discussion as to whether a murder such as this, committed in absentia, is really a murder and whether a jury would see it as such.

The old adage is that there is a novel inside everyone and and Casson dug his out to poke fun at the expense of dilettante, amateur architects and sound warnings about the rise of the Fascists. The rider is that that is where it is best kept, but rather like an archaeological dig there is some interest amongst the dross. It is a curiosity from a man who devoted his life to studying curiosities.

The Essex Murders

A review of The Essex Murders by Vernon Loder – 240328

After reading some of John Vahey’s books under his nom de plume of Henrietta Clandon, I decided to sample some of his novels written under his more familiar pseudonym, Vernon Loder. The Essex Murders, known by the alternative title of The Death Pool, was originally published in 1930 and is the first, albeit of only two, in his Inspector Brews series.

The Inspector is a likeable, empathetic investigator with a smile on his face, one who is, if not happy, prepared to put up with the involvement of a couple of amateur sleuths whom, to his credit, he acknowledges as giving him the clue that eventually leads to the resolution of a crime committed in the soggy fenlands of Essex. One of the amateurs, Ned Hope, has more than a little skin in the game as he has just purchased, using up all his financial resources,  the dilapidated Fen Court, set in the middle of nowhere, only to find, to his horror, that three bodies have been fished out of one of the four ponds at the bottom of his garden. His fiancée, Nancy Johnson, provides the unobtrusive love interest and keeps Ned, prone to flights of fancy, firmly on terra firma.

The victims are a wealthy man by the name of Habershon and his wards, two cousins who plan to get married against his wishes. The two youngsters have their wrists tied to each other and there is a fragment of a note pinned to the girl’s clothing suggesting their intention to commit suicide. The initial working theory is that they did away with themselves and that Habershon rushing to the scene too late to prevent the tragedy, slipped, hit his head and drowned in the pool. The watches of the dead men stopped within four minutes of each other.

However, as the case is investigated, it is clear that the facts, not least the position of Habershon’s abandoned car, do not support the suicide theory, but if it is murder, was Habershon the culprit but had an accident before he could leave the scene or was someone else responsible for a triple murder and how was it accomplished?  

Among the pertinent clues that emerge are a thermos containing Brazilian coffee laced with a sedative, a punt that was taken without permission, marks on the river bank, and the curious behaviour of Cornelius Hench, Ned’s nearest neighbour, who claims to be something of an ornithological expert but who confuses a kestrel for a hen-harrier. Hench has an almost too perfect alibi and does not seem physically strong enough to have hauled the bodies from the punt into the pond.

The interaction between Ned and Brews is one of the highlights of the book. Whenever Ned seems to have made some headway in his investigations, he finds that Brews with his annoying routine is normally one step ahead of him. However, his observations about the lights of the abandoned car being on which must have made it observable at the time of the murders and throws doubt on the account of one of the characters enables Brews to make sense of what happened.

With very few characters in the story, let alone credible suspects, Loder does a fine job in maintaining the tension and spinning out the resolution of the mystery, but simply because of the paucity of characters he has to pull off an astonishing piece of legerdemain to bring in two more suspects in at the death. Armchair sleuths might throw their book down in disgust that the author has not played fair, and indeed he has not, and the plot does suddenly veer to one of the appropriation of bearer bonds and the opportunity for a couple, not previously thought to have any relation with each other, to make money beyond their wildest dreams and a fresh start. It does challenge the preconception that just because someone is an x – insert profession or rank as appropriate – they cannot have committed murder.

The pace of the ending, in which both Ned and Brews manage to have their heads bashed in, makes up for the rather slow, ponderous start. Once the book gets going it is an entertaining read with some fascinating characters and a plot that never lull the reader into complacency. For Ned, at least the murders are the making of him financially and bring him a wife.

The moral of the story is never develop lumbago out of the blue.