Forgotten Book - Words for Murder Perhaps

Words for Murder Perhaps is a quirky title for a quirky novel which was first published in 1971 but probably seemed rather old-fashioned even then. The author, Edward Candy was actually female - she was a doctor called Barbara Neville (1925-93). There are quite a few oddities about the book, including the fact that the dust jacket of the Victor Gollancz first edition refers to the protagonist as Robert Gregory; it's a bit disconcerting to read the story and discover that he's actually called Gregory Roberts. 

The jacket info also proclaims this as Candy's second detective novel, appearing long after Which Doctor? (which I haven't read, but which Francis Iles and Edmund Crispin both praised highly), despite the fact that Candy's detective, Superintendent Burnivel, also makes an appearance in another book published before this one, Bones of Contention. Candy also wrote several non-criminous novels.  

There are some interesting ingredients in this book, which has an unusual version of the academic setting - an Extra-Mural department in a minor university - and which is also, to some extent, a bibliomystery. Roberts is taking a course on detective fiction, and there is some intriguing discussion of detective stories, with mention of Sayers, Michael Gilbert, Michael Innes, and Wilkie Collins among others. I enjoyed these aspects of the story, although they were not especially well integrated into the storyline.

After a rather slow scene-setting start, things warm up a bit when Roberts is contacted by his ex-wife Audrey, whose second husband (who was a friend of Roberts' prior to cuckolding him and leaving him in a suicidal state) has gone missing. Audrey has received a strange literary message which implies that the missing man is dead. As the story develops - in fits and starts - the theme of an apparent murder accompanied by a literary clue concerning an elegy recurs. I really like this concept.. I just don't think Candy made the best use of it.

Above all, it's odd that a book that explicitly discusses fair play in detective fiction should be so clumsily structured. It's not a fair play novel, and a sub-plot involving a painting seemed to me to be rather tacked on to the main story, while the developing relationship between Roberts and an attractive widowed student didn't strike me as convincing. These weaknesses are a pity, because Candy could write quite stylishly, making me really want to love this book. But telling a coherent story was, on this evidence, not such a strong point. And that may explain why, after this novel, she never returned to the detective novel.