The Terror by Edgar Wallace

I've very much enjoyed reading the Detective Story Club reprints that are being so attractively republished by Harper Collins. They occupy a slightly different part of the market than the British Library Crime Classics series, covering a longer time frame and including thrillers as well as whodunits. The books are keenly priced hardbacks with dust jackets that reproduce the original cover artwork. As you can see from the above image, The Terror is nothing if not dramatic!

The Terror was written by Edgar Wallace and is the second book in this series to which I've provided an introduction; the first was that very intriguing Victorian novel Called Back, by Hugh Conway. This is a very different kind of story, but it's packed with twisty action; reading it,you can see that Wallace had the storytelling skills of a mega-seller.

The Terror headed the list of six books which got the Detective Story Club off to a flying start, and was the only one of the half-dozen that was not a reprint. Wallace got the idea while on holiday in France in 1926, and turned it into a stage play before writing the novel. It was quickly filmed, and then remade with Alastair Sim and Bernard Lee in lead roles.

This edition also includes, as a bonus, Wallace's story White Face, which was also based on a stage play. Again, it was also filmed, though the film is now considered 'lost', and again it supplies lively escapist entertainment. The titles included in this series are highly diverse, ranging from the two books I've introduced to The Ponson Case by Freeman Wills Crotts and the highly enjoyable first appearance of Colonel Anthony Gethryn, The Rasp. And quite apart from their lively contents, these books do look lovely on the shelf!

Forgotten Book - The Ponson Case

The Detective Story Library imprint of Harper Collins has revived several fascinating titles, including some of my favourites. The Rasp by Philip MacDonald, which has an excellent intro by Tony Medawar, is an example. But Freeman Wills Crofts' second book, The Ponson Case, is a mystery I'd never read until I read the DSL reprint. This nicely presented reissue benefits from an intro by crime novelist Dolores Gordon Smith, who talked about Crofts at last year's hugely successful Bodies in the Library conference.

Dolores tells a story about Crofts' meticulous approach to the plotting of this novel, which was a follow-up to his best-selling debut The Cask. He spent three hours persuading his publishers that he had researched the plot detail with intense attention to detail. And this shows in the book, although I have to say the result is not totally gripping. There's a nice description of an English country house at the start of the book, but once the body of Sir William Ponson is discovered in the river, the focus is on alibis, and how to crack them.

Crofts ditched Inspector Burnley, who took the lead in The Cask, and introduced the equally painstaking Inspector Tanner. A sketch map of the scene of the crime is supplied, and Tanner ventures as far as Portugal in search of the truth about Ponson's death. But there is a shortage of suspects, a failing of several Golden Age novels. Why is it a failing? Because the characters are not explored in enough depth to compensate for the limited nature of the mystery.

Eventually Tanner gets to the truth, but it turns out to be rather anti-climactic, to say the least. But I'm really glad I read it, and not only because it filled a gap in my knowledge of Crofts' writing. What we have here is a book which shows a capable crime writer at the start of his career, trying to do something unusual  in genre terms to build on the conspicuous success of his debut novel. It was this determination not to get stuck in a rut (despite his long-term fondness for alibi puzzles) that set Crofts apart from lesser writers. If you look at his inverted novels, such as Antidote to Venom, you see how keen he was to experiment, and that same freshness of approach is the most notable feature of The Ponson Case..A welcome reprint, then, which has given me a better understanding of Crofts' approach to his craft.

Forgotten Book - The Rasp

The Rasp, my Forgotten Book for today, was the first crime novel published by Philip MacDonald solo and under his own name (he'd previously co-written two books with his father). It appeared in 1924, when he was still in his early twenties, and it introduced Colonel Anthony Gethryn, who was to become one of the more popular "great detectives" of the Golden Age.

The first thing to say about this book is that it's a very assured performance, especially considering the youth and inexperience of its author. Yes, there are flaws (the explanation of the puzzle at the end is excessively long, for instance, and the killer's insanity is not adequately foreshadowed) but it really is an excellent example of the breezy Golden Age whodunit. MacDonald's writing is invariably energetic - in fact, in some books he produced later, it seems rushed - and he carries his readers along, so that we don't worry too much about the improbabilities of the plot.

The book is sometimes described as a "locked room mystery", because John Hoode, a cabinet minister, is found dead in his locked study; however, there is an open window, so this is by no means an "impossible crime". It's a tricky one to solve, nonetheless, and although the police arrest someone, Gethryn becomes convinced that the man is innocent, and has been framed.

I've admired MacDonald ever since reading a reprint of Gethryn's second case, The White Crow, in my teens, and I really enjoyed this whodunit. I have a facsimile dust jacket of the first edition, and I also love the publishers' blurb: " all the subsidiary characters, especially the ladies, usually the weak spot in detective fiction are drawn with humour and insight". They don't write blurbs like that any more! Nor do they write books quite like The Rasp any more. But if you like Golden Age fiction, with all its strengths and limitations, there is every chance you'll like this one.

Forgotten Books - The Rasp

The Raso was the book that introduced Philip Macdonald’s regular detective, Anthony Gethryn, and served to establish his reputation as a writer of ingenious mysteries. Macdonald was born in 1900, and yet this book, published in 1924, when he was only 23, was not his first – he had previously co-authored two novels with his father, Ronald Macdonald.

I have managed to get hold of a copy of the first edition of the dust jacket (pity it's only a facsimile, because the original would be worth a good deal!)I found it interesting to read the blurb, which was notably enthusiastic. Now, blurbs often are very enthusiastic, but in this case, the publishers had indeed discovered an author whose reputation would endure, at least among fans of Golden Age mysteries.

The Rasp is not, itself, one of my favourite Philip Macdonalds, but it is written with sufficient gusto to justify the publishers' faith - and in years to come, Macdonald would write a number of fascinating books. Over 30 years later, the last Gethryn - The List of Adrian Messenger - appeared, and it was turned into quite a good film.

Here is what the blurb writer said:

‘Messrs Collins are publishing several detective stories this Autumn,most of them by famous names, but The Rasp, Mr Macdonald’s first attempt, is well worthy to stand with them. Firstly, because the murder is the most ingenious crime. Secondly, because Anthony, who unravels it, is a brilliant investigator and a delightful person. Thirdly, because all the subsidiary characters, especially the ladies, usually the weak spot in detective fiction, are drawn with humour and insight. Readers will note the close attention which the author gives to his detail, and how all the threads are essential to the pattern. The publishers believe The Rasp to be one of the best discoveries they have made for a long time.’

Macdonald eventually moved to Hollywood, and in his later years he focused more on script-writing than on novels. He died in 1980, and The Rasp is now largely forgotten. But it marked the start of a notable solo writing career.