Forgotten Book - The Big Ben Alibi

Golden Age detective fiction lends itself to parody and pastiche, but during the Golden Age itself, I'd say there weren't too many laugh-out-loud detective novels. I've come across a very pleasing exception to that general rule, namely The Big Ben Alibi, by Neil Gordon. The name was a pseudonym for the Scottish writer A.G. Macdonell (1895-1941), who appears to have published seven solo detective novels plus one which he co-wrote with Milward Kennedy, The Bleston Mystery.

Macdonell is remembered today, however, for a comic novel rather than a mystery. England, Their England is renowned in particular for a very enjoyable cricket scene, and a cricketer (who tells many boring stories about his career) is one of the members of the supporting cast in The Big Ben Alibi. The story concerns two young detective novelists whose latest novels are turned down by Henry Haddington, their literary agent. They hatch a cunning plan to enable them to recover their fortunes...

John Maclennan, one of the two writers, is a Scot, and I did wonder if he and his colleague George Cranford represented, to an extent at least, jokey versions of Macdonnell and Kennedy. I don't know the answer, but I certainly enjoyed the jokes about the cliches and conventions of Golden Age detective fiction, as well as the skits on popular newspapers. This reads like a book that was a lot of fun to write.

The plot is competently put together (which isn't always the case with comic detective novels) but what makes The Big Ben Alibi stand out is the sheer joie de vivre of the storyline, which involves a country house mystery, an unbreakable alibi and plenty of other tropes of the genre. I'm surprised this book has been so overlooked for so long. 

  

Forgotten Book - Escape to Quebec

Milward Kennedy is a writer I've featured several times in this series of Friday's Forgotten Books, and  there is much about his work that I like. He had fresh interesting ideas, a lively style, and a good understanding of people. And yet, he was something of a 'nearly man' who never quite made it as a consistent top-level performer. My choice today,. Escape to Quebec, illustrates both his strengths and his limitations.

This book is one of his later titles, first published in 1948, and one of the very few Kennedy titles which made it into a paperback edition. By this time,he had abandoned classic detection, and was trying his hand a at a different kind of story, really representing a return to his co-written debut, The Bleston Mystery, which is a light thriller. He drew on his experience of diplomacy and international relations - he was a senior figure in the International Labour Organisation - and also his knowledge of Canada, where he spent a good deal of time, in putting this novel together.

After a short prologue, we are presented with a first person narrative. Unusually, the narrator is a prisoner of war, and apparently a German Count, who has just escaped, together with a colleague, from where he was being held in Canada. The pair have been sprung in order to take part in an assassination plot. In some ways, therefore, this book resembles and anticipates the classic Frederick Forsyth best-seller, The Day of the Jackal. Forsyth's originality was much admired in its day, but you could say that Kennedy got there first (though I hasten to add that the books are very different from each other.)

There are a number of interesting and gripping scenes, and the story is very readable - I devoured it quickly, and with some pleasure. On the whole, however, I felt that there were good reasons why Kennedy failed to match the success that Forsyth later achieved. Overall, the level of excitement (given that we know that the leaders of the Western powers survived) is simply not high enough, and the romantic interest that is introduced is tepid in the extreme. Kennedy wins high marks for originality of concept, but not quite as many for execution. The story of his writing career, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, I continue to admire his desire to keep trying something new, of which this book is certainly an example.

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.