Forgotten Book - Bland Beginning

I must at some time have read Julian Symons' early (1949) mystery Bland Beginning, but it left no impression on me. Having now had another read of the story, I guess that partly this is due to the fact that I probably read it the best part of forty years ago, partly due to the fact that the story is about old (and possibly forged) books, so it's a bibliomystery - and while such stories didn't appeal too much in my younger days, they do now. I really enjoyed this one.

The title references the fact that this story, set in 1924, is a sort of prequel to Symons' earlier detective novels, in that it introduces (at a late stage) a young man who indulges in amateur detection and is in fact, Bland, the inspector who was Symons' first series character. It was also Bland's final appearance, as Symons turned decisively against the use of series detectives and also segued from traditional detection to psychological suspense.

Symons was more interested in, and more adept at writing, carefully plotted detective stories with a twist than he liked to admit in later life, and than his various detractors have acknowledged. This is, in some ways, an apprentice effort, but it's written with exuberance and good humour and the storyline derives from the Thomas Wise forgery case. There is even a gesture towards the Cluefinder! At the end of the story, a footnote refers back to an early clue.

The mystery concerns an attempt by four nicely contrasted young people to uncover the secret of some apparent forgeries of a book of poems by a long dead author called Martin Rawlings. Some of the poems are included in the text, and it's worth paying attention to them. Symons was a poet himself - in the Thirties he edited a poetry magazine - and this book includes a dedicatory poem to his baby daughter Sarah, whose sad death as a young woman would later cast a cloud over Symons' life. Symons' lifelong love of cricket is well to the fore in this story (it crops up in some of his later and better-known novels too) and there's a dramatic finale on the cricket pitch. Very good light entertainment.