Forgotten Book - Murder at Cambridge

Murder at the 'Varsity, written by Q. Patrick, and first published in 1933, is also known as Murder at Cambridge. And it has recently been republished under that latter title by that splendid small press, Ostara, in its attractively produced Cambridge Crime series. It's a very welcome reissue, but the fact that the story is set in Cambridge, England, might raise an eyebrow. For was not Q. Patrick (later, Patrick Quentin) an American writer?

The answer is no, not in this particular case. The Patrick/Quentin names concealed, over the years, the identities of no fewer than four different writers, two men and two women. As I understand it, this particular book is the only one that was written by Richard Webb alone. And Webb was an Englishman, and was an undergraduate at Cambridge before moving to the US. It is clear from reading the book that he had a close understanding of Cambridge university life - there is a whiff of authenticity that does not suggest research from a distance.

The story is a pretty good one, too. The narrator, Hilary Fenton, is a native of Philadelphia (where Webb worked after emigrating) and a fellow student who is murdered comes from South Africa (where Webb had worked before moving to the US.) Fenton's attempts to get involved in the sleuthing are compromised by the fact that he has fallen in love with a pretty student who was lurking around the murder scene. Rather foolishly, he does not tell the police all he knows about the victim, and complications ensue.

I thought I'd solved the puzzle, but no - the author had a neat twist up his sleeve. The culprit was genuinely unexpected, and overall I thought Webb got away rather well with some rather unlikely plot manoeuvres. He was a clever writer, as was the better known Hugh Wheeler,with whom he soon began to collaborate. This solo effort does, however, show that Webb was an accomplished detective novelist in his own right. This is an entertaining Golden Age story, on a par with the better known books set in Oxford during the same era.

Cambridge

After a summer of disappointing weather, a promising forecast was enough to get me off on a trip down the motorway to a truly fascinating city I''ve only once visited in the past, in the long ago days when one of my brothers-in-law was a student there. Cambridge is not the most accessible place from the north west, but on a very sunny week-end, it was utterly charming and beautiful.

Highlights for my son and me included a river tour on a punt (courtesy of a current undergraduate - it's more than thirty years since I lasted punted and I suspect my technique hasn't improved in the intervening years) and a walk round the superb botanical gardens. We found countless attractive corners, and whilst a couple of days isn't enough to see everything - far from it - we packed a lot into the time available.

Cambridge isn't as well represented in crime fiction as Oxford, and, although I've never attempted a count, I'm sure there are, and have been fewer ex- Cambridge students who have written crime than is the case with Oxford. But this is irrelevant, really, because there are plenty of very good Cambridge-based books. Ostara Publishing (masterminded by Richard Reynolds of Heffers) has published a number of them,and this small press is well worth a look.

Perhaps my favourite Cambridge-based crime novel is a historical mystery, The Anatomy of Ghosts, by Andrew Taylor. Andrew is a gifted writer, one of the finest around, and is confident enough in his own skills to develop a story gradually, eschewing synthetic dramatic tricks that "up the stakes", and relying instead on craft and character (as well as a talent for unorthodoxl plotting) to draw his readers in. This is one of his very best books. Among other first-rate writers who use Cambridge as a setting, I'd highlight the talented and under-estimated Michelle Spring. I've not often mentioned Michelle in this blog, but although far from prolific, she is definitely worth of note.

After Cambridge, we had a fantastic day somewhere else that has occasionally featured in the genre. More of that tomorrow, if time permits....

Forgotten Book - The Crime at Diana's Pool

Canon Victor Alonzo Whitechurch was a founder member of the Detection Club, and a book he wrote in 1926 is my latest choice as a Forgotten Book. It is The Crime at Diana’s Pool, and is one of his six crime novels – he also wrote some good short stories with railway settings, several of which feature Thorpe Hazell, a sleuth who memorably combines vegetarianism with health faddishness and an enthusiasm for rail travel.

This is a book with a classic country house setting. A garden party ends in the murder of the host, Felix Nayland, and the obvious suspect is a mysterious chap – foreign and needless to say, bearded – who cons his way into the band that had been hired to entertain the guests. One of those guests was Harry Westerham, a likeable cleric who does some of the detective work, along with the industrious Sergeant Ringwood.

Whitechurch makes the point in a preface that he had no idea of the solution to his mystery when he wrote the first chapter. I have to say that I figured out the culprit at an early stage, but it’s a tribute to the author’s light and agreeable style that he kept me interested despite this.

My copy is, in fact, not a musty volume dug out of a second hand stall, but a brand new, nicely produced paperback published by Ostara, a Cambridge-based print-on-demand outfit who have brought back a number of obscure titles – college and clerical crime as well as some good thrillers – and have also reprinted some nice books by splendid modern authors such as Keith Miles and Kate Charles. I am a fan of Ostara, and encourage others to support their enterprise.

Academe in Mystery and Detective Fiction

When I wrote a while back that An Oxford Tragedy by J.C. Masterman was regarded as the first mystery set in the city’s academic environs, I was corrected by a comment from Philip, who pointed out that, in 1929, four years earlier, Adam Broome had published The Oxford Murders.

I realised that, instead of relying on my memory of the various reference books that acclaim Masterman’s book and ignore Broome’s, that I should have checked a voluminous book that I bought a few years ago called Academe in Mystery and Detective Fiction. Written by John B. Kramer, it is a real labour of love, commenting on no fewer than 486 academic mysteries from 1910 to 1999.

This is quite a bibliography, compiled with a great deal of discipline. The basic plan of the book is that each of the 486 annotations should comprise two paragraphs. The first describes the story (‘paying special attention to academic disciplines, academic ranks, and the location and nature of the academic institution’) while the second discusses the author.

Kramer’s book is the sort of project that will never appear on any best-seller list, but I admire the endeavour, and he has produced a valuable resource that I have dipped into infrequently in the past. I’ll consult it more diligently when writing about academic mysteries in future. Meanwhile, I’m pleased to say that The Oxford Murders, and Broome’s later book The Cambridge Murders, have both recently been republished in attractive editions by Ostara Publishing, whose enterprise really is commendable. We need more neglected books to reappear!