What Beckoning Ghost? is a 1947 novel by Douglas G. Browne which features his regular detective character Harvey Tuke. Tuke, a senior official in the Department of Public Prosecutions, is invited along with his wife to a dinner party hosted by a couple called the Reaveleys. The host and hostess are connected with strange stories about the sighting of a ghost in Hyde Park, and shortly before the dinner party takes place, a homeless man who has seen the phantom is found dead in the Serpentine.
The dinner party is a tortured affair, with palpable tensions between several of the guests. Although Tuke learns more about the supposed ghost, the evening ends chaotically when Mrs Reaveley flounces out of her own party. Not long after that, she too is found dead - once again, drowned in the Serpentine. Has she committed suicide or been murdered? And what does the ghost of Hyde Park have to do with it?
This novel, rich in London atmosphere, is unusually structured, with several lengthy set-pieces - the dinner party, the inquest on the dead woman, and an underground chase. There are several nice touches, although one particular red herring is never explained, which I found irritating (or did I just miss the explanation? You never know....). Overall, though, this was a book that I really enjoyed.
Browne was a capable writer with a strong interest in true crime. He co-wrote the biography of the famous pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and part of the murder plot in this book is drawn from a real life precedent. This is a novel which was much debated by Detection Club members when they were deciding whether or not Browne should be elected to membership. The full story is told in the CADS Supplement Was Corinne's Murder Clued?, by Curtis Evans. Browne was indeed elected to membership. and I'd say deservedly so.
My copy of this book, which has a nice map on the endpapers of the London setting, belonged to Browne himself, and it includes a few tantalising margin notes made by him. The British Library's own copy of the book also has the map. But otherwise identical apparent first editions owned by two leading collectors who are friends of mine do not have the map. It's a bibliographic mystery, to which we don't have the solution. At all events, Browne was a writer who interests me, and I'll be writing again about him in the future. .
6 comments:
My own copy of the first edition is without map, Edward. The mystery deepens.
I know Browne from the two (I think only two) titles reprinted in the US by Dover in the 1970s - this book, and Too Many Cousins. No map, unfortunately. On one of my visits to London I stayed in a small converted-residence hotel at Lancaster Gate-the Mornington, which might well have been in the same block as the site of the dinner party. Reading the book I could visualize the scene, and Tuke walking across Bayswater Road into Hyde Park to investigate.
I wonder if the printer (or publisher) was limited in the number of maps he could include? I think in 1947 books were still issued under wartime economy standards.
Mauro, as you say, the mystery deepens...
Art, yes, the Dover Too Many Cousins was my introduction to Browne, long ago. Yes, it's an interesting area of London.
Fiona, that sounds very plausible to me. You might just have solved the puzzle!
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