Forgotten Book - Fear for Miss Betony

Fifteen years have passed since I discussed Dorothy Bowers' 1941 novel on this blog, although at that time I'd read the American reprint issued by the late, lamented Rue Morgue Press and so I referred to the novel by its slightly different American title, Fear and Miss Betony. It's a well-written novel and I decided to take another look at it, this time from the writer's perspective as much as the reader's.

One thing that has changed in the intervening years is that I've acquired a lovely inscribed copy of this book. In inscribing the book to someone called R.H. Naylor, Bowers quotes from 'All's Well that Ends Well': 'We, the poorer born, whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes'. Every time I think of Bowers, my admiration is mixed with the poignant reflection that she could have achieved so much had her life not been so cruelly cut short by TB.

As for the story, I've come to the conclusion that - for all its merits - the structure is lop-sided. The story is very, very different from A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, another very well-written book that doesn't work as well as it should have done, but there are one or two resemblances. I suspect that Bowers enjoyed writing about Emma Betony so much that she focused too much on the story's very slow build-up. As a result, various revelations come in a rush at the end, when her usual detectives, Pardoe and Salt, make a belated appearance.

As with the Tey novel, I think she could have made more of the basic situation. Agatha Christie was not as accomplished a prose stylist as either Tey or Bowers, but she would have dealt with the mystery element of the book carefully and effectively, of that I'm pretty sure. But it's worth emphasising that there are many compensations, including the period detail and an insight into the attitudes of the time, especially towards older people. At the start of the story, Emma Betony is sixty-one years old and everyone treats her as though she has nine toes in the grave. Shame! Anyway, she proves to be a lively and intelligent woman and I enjoyed sharing her company once again. 

Top Ten Obscure Golden Age novels that deserve to be better known

Following on from last week's post, here's an admittedly idiosyncratic list of obscure Golden Age novels that are fairly hard to find (at the moment) but which in my opinion deserve to be more widely known. One thing that most of them have in common is that they are unorthodox - the books by Connington and Bowers are the only really conventional ones of the type people associate with the Golden Age. I suppose I'm making the point that the Golden Age was more varied than many people believe...

10. Death Has a Past by Anita Boutell. This variant of the "whowasdunin" is set in England but written by a very talented American. What a shame her career was so short.

9. Nightmare by Lynn Brock. An odd book, quite different from his convoluted mysteries starring Colonal Gore, and an ambitious study in psychology. A downbest ending is a flaw, but it's a very interesting book.

8. Poison in the Parish by Milward Kennedy. Kennedy was influenced by Anthony Berkeley, and was almost equally innovative, although not with the same degree of success. This is a fascinating and original spin on the village mystery which deserves to be much better known.

7. No Walls of Jasper by Joanna Cannan. This is a very impressive piece of work, so good that I felt quite distraught when I read the same author's more orthodox novel The Body in the Beck, and found it tedious. But at her best, she really could write. This book is somewhat in the Francis Iles vein, but quite distinctive. It just pushed out of the list Portrait of a Murderer by Anne Meredith, which I also recommend.

6. The Divison Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson. This was the solo detective effort of "Red Ellen", the left wing Labour MP who was a prime mover in the Jarrow Crusade. The House of Commons setting is very well evoked, and the book is free of didacticism. The plot is so-so, but never mind, the story is very readable.

5. The Sweepstake Murder by J.J. Connington. This is a really clever and enthralling story, a fresh take on the "who will be next?" theme that makes And Then There Were None so irresistible.

4. The Grindle Nightmare by Q.Patrick. A very clever mystery with a great US setting and an astonishingly dark storyline. An unforgettable book. I'm very much indebted to John Norris for supplying me with a copy.

3. Middle-Class Murder by Bruce Hamilton. Brother of the better known Patrick, Bruce wrote a few extremely interesting novels. This is very much in the Francis Iles tradition, and is really well done.

2. As for the Woman by Francis Iles. This book was a commercial failure, and marked the end of the novel-writing career of Anthony Berkeley, aka Francis Iles. Hardly anyone seems to like it. So why do I rate it? Because it's an intriguing and unusual novel, which repays careful study. More on this topic in the future.

1. A Deed Without a Name by Dorothy Bowers. My choice of this as number one is, I readily admit, partly influenced by sentiment, but it would be a grim world if there were no place for a bit of sentiment every now and then. It's a nicely clued whodunit of real merit, by a writer of genuine ability and it evokes the "phoney war" nicely. Yes, it is not perfect, but I think it's utterly heartbreaking that Bowers died of TB months after being invited to join the Detection Club and at a time when she hoped her life was changing for the better. Had she lived, I'm confident she would have become a major star. And the good news is, this book is the easiest to find of those on this list. It was reprinted by the splendid Rue Morgue Press a few years ago.

Enid Schantz

I'd intended to cover a forgotten book by Anthony Berkeley today, but I've heard the sad news of the death of Enid Schantz, and so I've decided instead to pay a small tribute to her.

Enid and her husband Tom were American book-dealers, whom I met several times over the years. Charming and considerate people, with a great passion for mysteries. They ran a store called Rue Morgue, although in recent years they focused on online selling.

They also set up an imprint, Rue Morgue Press, which I've mentioned before on this blog, and which specialised in forgotten books - by such unlikely names as Maureen Sarsfield, as well as the better known Pamela Branch. I bought one of their Branch titles recently, when I was last in Oxford.

They also revived the complete works of Dorothy Bowers, a splendid writer, and their research on Bowers' short life was fascinating. When I last met them, they recommended me to try Clyde Clason, a very interesting writer I'd never heard of before. And their research on H.C. Bailey led to my pilgrimage to his home in North Wales a few months back. I tried to persuade them to republish Henry Wade, but alas to no avail; they weren't Wade fans. But if you check the Rue Morgue catalogue, you'll find plenty of little known gems.

Enid was a lovely lady, and I shall miss her, but I'll remember her not just with affection, but with admiration. I only wish I had been able to spend more time in her company.

Forgotten Book - Shadows Before

It's almost eighteen months since I featured Dorothy Bowers in Patti Abbott's series of Forgotten Books, so I thought she was more than due for another mention. She only wrote five novels in a career of great promise that was, sadly, cut short by TB. But they are books of distinct merit, which earned her election to the Detection Club not long before she died.

Shadows Before is an ambitious and elaborately plotted mystery. First published in 1939, it marked a welcome return for Chief Inspector Pardoe and his doughty sidekick Sergeant Salt. Again, the pair are called in when a local force, confronted by the fatal poisoning of a rich woman, needs the help of Scotland Yard. The sensitivity of the case is increased by the fact that the victim’s husband, Matthew Weir, was acquitted two years earlier of poisoning her sister. Weir is a mild-mannered academic who attracts the fervent support of those who know and like him – but is he a skilful double-murderer? And if not, what, if anything, is the connection between the two deaths?

The complications of the story are increased by the way in which Bowers shifts between the viewpoints of different characters – and in one instance, perhaps, she plays a little less than fair. The major flaw in the book is, however, simply that the cast of characters is too extensive, with the result that interest is diffused. This is a pity, because Bowers sketches her people with skilful economy and a less congested narrative would have been highly effective. It is a mark of her limited experience at the time, perhaps, that she overdid the complexities. Nevertheless, the quality of the writing has stood the test of time and makes this book a pleasure to read.

At one time, Bowers' novels weren't easy to find, and that may account for their having slipped out of sight. But Rue Morgue Press have done a great job in reprinting all five titles, and researching the all-too-short life of this accomplished writer.

Forgotten book - Fear and Miss Betony

My latest contribution to Patti Abbott's series of forgotten books is Dorothy Bowers' Fear and Miss Betony. Once rather obscure, this title has recently been republished in a modestly priced paperback edition by the admirable Rue Morgue Press. Rue Morgue have revived some very interesting yet neglected Golden Age writers and Dorothy Bowers is possibly the most interesting of them all. They have reprinted all five of Bowers’ crime novels. This one, first published in 1941, marked the final appearance of her likeable series detective, Inspector Dan Pardoe, although he only turns up towards the end of the story. Bowers’ early death from TB robbed British crime fiction of one of its great hopes – she was seen by some as a natural successor to that other Dorothy, Miss Sayers. This book was much praised in its day, not least by the great American critic James Sandoe, and the publishers summarise its appeal thus: ‘The Golden Age of detective fiction was known for elaborate plots. This may well be the most ingenious one of them all.’ Oddly, though, I’m not sure that the ingenuity of the plot is the real reason why the book deserves to be revived. Bowers’ writing style is literate and appealing. Here, the encounter between the eponymous Emma Betony and a sinister fortune teller called The Great Ambrosio is highly atmospheric and memorable. The setting is nicely done; the story gives a reminder that, albeit changed, life in England still went on while the Second World War raged. And Bowers understood the importance of character. Right at the end, Pardoe makes the point that: ‘The key to this was character – as to so much else. The impact of character on circumstance, circumstance on character.’ The structure of the book is unusual. Emma is brought in by her former pupil, Grace Aram, to help understand an apparent campaign to murder a patient run at the nursing home-cum-school that Grace runs. But the victim is not the person whom one has been led to expect: shades of Agatha Christie's Peril at End House. Unfortunately, the detective work seems a bit perfunctory and at least one clue is withheld from the reader. More important, there are too many characters and so one quickly comes to the conclusion that the culprit is likely to be one of the few who are truly memorable. In the end, I still can’t understand why the murderer went to so much trouble. It seemed to me that the objective might have been achieved more easily and at much less risk. The over-riding merit of the book lies not in the plot but in the splendid characterisation of Emma Betony.