Forgotten Book - Death of the Home Secretary

I was tempted to acquire a copy of Alan Thomas's Death of the Home Secretary because a copy became available that bears a fascinating inscription, dated in the month of publication - October 1933. Thomas inscribed it to his friend Vernon Bartlett 'in the hope this book may provide an hour's relief from the blight of the world situation!' Bartlett was a writer and journalist, sometimes described as the BBC's first foreign correspondent. He left the BBC in controversial circumstances in 1933 and was destined to become quite a well-known political figure, becoming an MP in 1938 and holding his seat for twelve years. And this is a novel which shows Thomas was himself interested in politics, though he was primarily also a journalist. 

One intriguing piece of trivia about the book. I'd always assumed that 'unconscious bias' is a modern term, and indeed some internet sources suggest this. But it crops up, quite significantly, towards the end of this novel.

Thomas is best-remembered for his 'impossible crime' novel The Death of Laurence Vining, which I reviewed here. In that book, the detection is undertaken by the painstaking but sound Inspector Widgeon, and he reappears here, although he never returned. Like the earlier book, this one is soundly written and definitely very readable. But one failing they both have in common is that there is quite a bit of padding.

Having said that, I enjoyed this novel. Even though there aren't enough suspects to justify the length of the book, in my opinion, the late twists are good enough to justify the investment of time in reading the story. Thomas was obviously interested, like Anthony Berkeley, in the ambiguous nature of justice, and this is a key ingredient in the story. Not an easy book to find, and not cheap if you do come across the first edition, but I was glad to have bought my copy. And that lovely inscription really appeals to me. The more things change, the more they stay the same?