Forgotten Book - The Bleston Mystery

My forgotten book today is The Bleston Mystery, first published in 1928. The author is named as Robert Milward Kennedy, but that pen-name concealed a writing duo. One of the collaborators was Milward Kennedy, whom I’ve written about several times in this blog. The other was someone who had been to the same school as Kennedy – A.G. Macdonell, who later became well known as a humorous writer, his most famous title being England, Their England.

This book is quite different from Kennedy’s solo efforts. It’s a fast-moving, rather light-hearted story, slightly reminiscent of some of the lively thrillers that Agatha Christie wrote in the 20s, especially those featuring the Beresfords. I thought it stood up to the test of time rather well – better than I had expected, to be honest. There is a twist in the tale, and although I foresaw the surprise revelation, I thought it was skilfully handled.

Oddly enough, the main protagonist in this romp is called Kennedy, but his first name is Philip. The book opens with a visit to his home by a sinister foreigner, quickly followed by the news that he is one of two legatees of a dead friend, and the promise of something both mysterious and valuable about his inheritance. Several killings follow, and it becomes clear that Philip’s life is also at risk unless and until he solves the puzzle of a deserted camp at Bleston which had once housed German prisoners of war.

After this collaboration, Kennedy and Macdonell seem to have gone their separate ways, at least in literary terms. I can trace no further joint efforts of theirs. They each achieved a measure of success with solo efforts – perhaps especially Macdonell, prior to his early death in 1941. But The Bleston Mystery ranks as an enjoyable, if little known, piece of light entertainment.

Forgotten Books - Half-Mast Murder

Milward Kennedy was a founder member of the Detection Club, but his novels are long out of print in the UK, and Half-Mast Murder is a good candidate for inclusion in Patti Abbott’s series of Forgotten Books.

Published in 1930, it is a country house murder case, boasting three plans, including one of the octagonal summer house in which Professor Paley, an expert on the subject of international relations, is found stabbed to death. The summer house is locked, but Superintendent Guest soon establishes that the victim was murdered, and the ‘locked room’ element of the story is quite minor. The flag above the summer house is flying at half-mast – but why? The explanation for this aspect of the story is a pretty good one.

The main question is whether the motive for the murder was connected to the dead man’s political views, or to some more commonplace personal or domestic issue. There is one character who appears to be above suspicion throughout, and if I were writing the book, I’d have been tempted to make her the culprit. But Kennedy opts for a different outcome, although the motive is concealed until the end of the book (and because a key fact is not revealed until very late on, he doesn’t really play fair with the reader.) The culprit’s identity is, though, a pleasing twist on an old theme.

Kennedy, whose full name was Milward Roden Kennedy Burge, was an interesting character. His first book was a mystery written with a contemporary from Winchester College, A.G. Macdonell, best known for the humorous classic England, Their England. He wrote few novels after the 30s, though he reviewed crime until the 60s, and lived until 1968. At one time, he worked for the League of Nations, which is name-checked in his book, and I felt this background might have been more fully exploited than in fact proves to be the case. Kennedy was a good enough writer to come up with some very interesting ideas, though not perhaps good enough to make the very best use of them. Even so, this is a sound example of Golden Age fiction of the second rank.