Forgotten Book - Case for Sergeant Beef

The more I read Leo Bruce, the more I realise that Barry Pike was right when, a good many years ago, he commended his writing to me. The blend of humour and plot works well time and again. A good example is to be found in Case for Sergeant Beef, originally published in 1947. As so often, much of the fun comes from the contrast between Beef and his 'Watson', Lionel Townsend, who continues to be confounded by his colleague's methods.

This time, Bruce gives us an unusual bend of traditional detection allied to an 'inverted mystery'. Beef is asked to look into the murder of a female client's brother, but before long Townsend's narrative is interrupted and we are presented with journal entries written by a retired watchmaker who rejoices in the name Wellington Chickle. Chickle sets out to commit a perfect crime - a murder without a motive.

Even though we are given insight denied to the central characters, there is a great deal of pleasure to be gained from following the contrasting investigations undertaken by Beef and the amiable Inspector Chatto. Chatto decides to focus on the motive for the crime - so he is obviously going to get things wrong isn't he?

The murder is committed on Christmas Eve, although Bruce doesn't make a great deal of the seasonal setting. His focus is on charting the progress of the investigation in an entertaining fashion and I think he succeeds. This isn't a complex story, but it's an enjoyable read. And there is one truly wonderful chapter heading - namely, 'The Inevitable Second Murder'.

Forgotten Book - Case with No Conclusion

Leo Bruce's third book about Sergeant William Beef, originally published in 1939, was Case with No Conclusion. The title is enticingly challenging - it suggests something very different from the conventional Golden Age mystery in which, so we are often told, order is disrupted only to be restored at the end. And there's no doubt that the central plot idea is a strong and attractive one.

Two features of the Beef series help the books to stand out from the crowd. Lionel Townsend is an entertaining narrator, constantly bemoaning Beef's failings, and just as consistently missing the point. He really is one of the most enjoyable and distinctive Watson surrogates in detective fiction. Add to this the plentiful references to the detective genre, and you have a sort of light-hearted metafiction which is very agreeable.

In this story, Beef has left the police and set up as a private investigator. But were his early successes in detection simply due to luck? This question lies at the heart of the story. Peter Ferrers engages his services in connection with 'the Sydenham Murder'. Peter's brother Stewart has been arrested in connection with the killing of an unpleasant character called Dr Benson. But was Stewart guilty? Beef becomes convinced that he was not, but he struggles to prove it.

The only reason why I don't rate this novel as a minor classic of its type is that I feel it sags in the middle, with a cross-Channel foray that seems rather like padding. I think that Bruce, like so many other Golden Age novelists (Richard Hull is an example that springs to mind) found it relatively easy to come up with clever ideas, but didn't always supply enough ancillary plot material (or strong characterisation) to make his novels gripping from start to finish. It might be harsh to say that here we have a brilliant idea for a short story, expanded beyond its natural length, but I do think the storyline would have benefited from further development and texture. But I don't want to criticise too severely, because it was an engaging read and confirmed my enthusiasm for Sergeant Beef.        

Forgotten Book - Cold Blood

I've sung the praises of Leo Bruce's Sergeant Beef stories before on this blog, and Cold Blood, the eighth and last novel in the series, is a good example of the traditional mystery. The book was published in 1952, and is darker and less exuberant in tone than the early novels in the series, but there are still several good jokes, not least the references to famous fictional detectives.

As usual, the story is narrated by the pompous Lionel Townsend, the most snobbish of Watsons. The Beef-Townsend relationship has a distinct flavour and is one of the great pleasures of the series. At this point in his career, Beef is a private investigator, having left the police, with whom he remains on pretty good terms. This is a country house mystery, and Golden Age tropes abound.

Beef is called in by a friend of the late Cosmo Ducrow, who has been found with his head bashed in, presumably by a croquet mallet. Ducrow was a wealthy man, and one of those who stood to inherit, his nephew, is the prime suspect. But those close to the nephew believe he is innocent, and curiously, despite the evidence against him, he has not been arrested.

The plot is very nicely structured, and it certainly kept me guessing. Kate Jackson has also expressed her enthusiasm for the novel in her splendid blog. I'd be interested to know why Bruce decided to abandon Beef in favour of Carolus Deene, who featured in a long series but has never attracted quite as much enthusiasm. One possibility is that, after a spell in prison for alleged sexual offences (a conviction that now has the strong whiff of a miscarriage of justice) he decided to break with the past. 

Forgotten Book - Neck and Neck

Leo Bruce's books are much admired by Golden Age enthusiasts such as Barry Pike, who also once put together a pleasing volume of his short stories, but they are no longer well-known in the UK. There were some reprints in the US some years back, but in his native country, Bruce has been neglected for far too long. I've previously praised his excellent debut, Case for Three Detectives, in particular. Today I'm turning my attention to the final Sergeant Beef novel, published in 1950, Neck and Neck.

It's difficult to say too much about this book without a major plot spoiler, but I'll try to skirt round the central device. As usual, the story is narrated by Lionel Townsend, but in this book there's a difference - he and his brother are potential suspects in connection with the murder of his wealthy aunt. A third potential suspect has, in fact, been disinherited, and in any event has an alibi for the time of the aunt's death. So it's all rather baffling. Is Lionel's brother really guilty? Or is there some unknown motive?

Beef is also working on a death in the Cotswolds. A rascally publisher has been murdered, and the author has some fun at the expense of unscrupulous vanity publishers. The storyline darts hither and thither, but without ever becoming unduly distracting. Beef is, as usual, a commanding figure, and Lionel seems rather more sympathetic than usual, even though we suspect he has something to hide.

It may be that there are no original whodunit plots, but certainly the central idea here is handled in a way that struck me as fresh and pleasing. Even though I knew roughly what was going on, I found the story readable and enjoyable. A good mystery that certainly deserves to be better known.

Forgotten Book - Case with Four Clowns

Leo Bruce was a prolific writer whose career began in, but comfortably outlasted, the Golden Age. I've never got round to reading him, but I heard that his 1939 book Case with 4 Clowns was an interesting "whowasdunin" so I decided to give it a go. And I'm glad I did. It's almost a very fine book. Unfortunately,it falls short of excellence, because it's rather padded out. But there are some good ingredients, which make me want to read more of Bruce (whose real name was Rupert Croft-Cooke).

This is the fourth of the novels featuring Sergeant Beef, and is narrated by a detective novelist called Townsend. Much of the strength of the book derives from the comedy inherent in the relationship between Townsend and Beef. Townsend is insufferably smug, and constantly patronises the detective whose cases he chronicles. And at the start of the book we are told that Beef recently left the police because of a debacle in his last investigation. But he's a smart guy. All the way through, the reader roots for Beef and is pleased when Townsend gets his come-uppance.

Beef gets word from a relative who is involved with a circus travelling around Yorkshire that a gypsy fortune teller has predicted that a murder will take place in connection with the circus. But who will be the killer and who the victim? On this (rather slender, it must be said) basis, Beef and Townsend journey up North and join the people of the circus - who treat them with remarkable tolerance.

The story struck me as rather thin, although I rather admired the way that Bruce tried to compensate for this, and the finale (which explains the title - which had puzzled me) is very good. The story is really a variant on the idea of a "whowasdunin", and not a bad one, but too protracted, with too many characters whom I didn't find quite as fascinating as Bruce did. This sounds negative, but only because I'm frustrated that an evidently talented writer didn't fully realise the potential of the concept he came up with. Perhaps the problem was that it was a concept better suited to a short story or a novella than a full length novel.