Forgotten Book - Mystery in Kensington Gore

My Forgotten Book for today is one of a stack of novels written in the early Thirties by Philip MacDonald. He was at that time so productive that he used a pseudonym for some of his non-series work, and Mystery in Kensington Gore was written under the alias of Martin Porlock. It's a stand-alone thriller, rather than a classic whodunit, and there are signs that it was written quickly and carelessly. Yet it also displays some of MacDonald's characteristic strengths.

First and foremost, he was a really good story-teller. This book opens with a man called Peter Craven, down on his luck, and breaking in to a London house for a bite to eat. Things take an unexpected turn after he falls asleep and, on waking, encounters a young woman called Frances. It turns out that they are sharing the house with a recently murdered man, Frances' stepfather. Frances is terrified that she will be accused of his murder, and persuades Craven to take the body away and dump it somewhere. This he does - but before long, the body reappears in the house...

I thought this was a terrific spin on the classic "vanishing body" plot. Horrified, Peter and Frances make a run for it, but soon the police are in hot pursuit. After a series of escapades, the pair start (rather belatedly, if you ask me) to try to puzzle out who has really committed the murder, and why. There is one likely suspect, but is the truth more complex? The answer is yes, but there aren't as many twists as I'd hoped for.

This book was written a few years before MacDonald left the UK for Hollywood, but it is a good example of the filmic style of his writing. The storyline is strongly reminiscent of Hitchcock's much-loved and often-used plot device - the ordinary man (and woman) trying to flee from both the forces of evil and the authorities. I thought it was well done, although it's only fair to mention that one Golden Age expert, with whose judgments I often agree,considered the book to be "utter tripe". Well, we are all entitled to our own opinions. I enjoyed this story, even though the climax was rather flimsy, with a detailed written confession that smacks of lazy and hurried writing. Certainly, the reader needs to suspend disbelief somewhat. But that's true of many lively thrillers, is it not?

Forgotten Book - X v Rex

Today the serial killer novel is commonplace, but arguably, its origins are to be found in Golden Age detective fiction. My Forgotten Book for today is one of the very best serial killer stories from the 1930s, X v Rex. Originally the author was named as Martin Porlock, but this was a pseudonym for Philip Macdonald. He had previous as a serial killer novelist, and I covered Murder Gone Mad in an earlier entry in this series. That story does have some merit, but I think X v Rex, which first appeared in 1933, is a superior book.

The key to its success is relentless pace. The way Macdonald shifts from viewpoint to viewpoint, using very short scenes and lots of incident, is very modern. Of course, the style is dated in some ways, but for a book written 80 years ago, it has a remarkably contemporary feel. I also enjoyed the occasional shafts of wit. An example is when Macdonald offers a kaleidoscopic picture of what is going on in Britain at the time of the murders, and mentions that the publisher, Victor Gollancz, "denies that Francis Iles is the pseudonym of Mr Martin Porlock."

One of the other titles given to this book, and which was used in a film version which I haven't seen, is The Mystery of the Dead Police, which really explains what the story is all about. Someone is killing cops, with a great deal of ingenuity. The killer confides in a journal, extracts from which are included, and this gives some insight into his motivation - an advance on Murder Gone Mad, in which the culprit's nature was not handled satisfactorily. Macdonald, as many of his contemporaries were doing, was learning about the craft and structure of a complex mystery through trial and error, and here he shows a great deal of flair. The journal device has been used countless times since then.

Macdonald would later move to Hollywood, and work on screenplays for classic films as different as Rebecca and Forbidden Planet. His lively writing style was ideally suited to the movies, and it is equally effective in this story. The mysterious Nicholas Revel, who assists the police with their investigation, and is also a prime suspect, is a memorable character. All in all, a very enjoyable book. When I re-read it recently, I devoured it quickly and with a great deal of pleasure.

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