Plenty of crime writers like a drink, but I doubt any of us over the years has been quite as fixated on featuring pubs in our stories as John Rhode. He really did love them, and quite possibly they brought out the best in him as a writer. Licensed for Murder certainly suggests this; it was published towards the end of his long career, in 1958, but it isn't a tired effort by any means. In fact, I'd say it's one of the Rhodes I've most enjoyed travelling (forgive the pun, but I did read it on my recent trip to Spain...)
The opening of the story is by no means dramatic. The bombshell that greets the managing director of a brewery is merely that the veteran tenant of a pub called the Knappers' Arms has decided to retire. The snag is that the pub, in a remote village that was a hub of the flint-knapping trade (which, I admit, I'd never even heard of, though apparently it was a big thing in the south of England at one time), is no longer an attractive proposition to a new tenant.
Unexpectedly, however, a couple agree to take over the running of the pub, following a short interregnum. But they then discover a body on the premises, charred beyond recognition. Who is the deceased and how did their remains come to be there? An interesting conundrum. Scotland Yard, in the person of Jimmy Waghorn, is called in, but soon finds himself at a loss. Naturally, he consults old Dr Priestley, who is as astute as he is grumpy...
There are some nice plot twists in the story, along with a shoal of red herrings. One small piece of factual information given early on made me suspicious, although the reason why it was suspicious was impossible to figure out until towards the end of the novel. I found this one very readable, with an authentic background that Rhode evokes well.
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