Forgotten Book - Of Unsound Mind

When Harry Carmichael's Of Unsound Mind was published in 1960, the blurb writer for Collins Crime Club didn't stint on the hype: 'This is an original novel of exceptional ingenuity. Seven human documents have been woven into one...It is a story that grips and never lets go, a story which displays Harry Carmichael's rare talent for mystery at its best.'

I found the story highly readable and entertaining. Insurance man Peter Piper comes across a sequence of apparently inexplicable suicides and enlists the help of his friend Quinn, a journalist, to make sense of the puzzles. I did figure out quite a lot of the plot early on, although this didn't detract from enjoyment, as the pace is lightning-fast from start to finish.

One reason I was able to make sense of the puzzle so quickly was that, in some key respects it resembles the central puzzle in a very good novel by John Bingham, NIght's Black Agent - but Bingham's book was published in 1961. Did Carmichael's central idea influence Bingham? It's possible, but it's also fair to emphasise that in other respects the books are totally different. And I enjoyed both of them.

Another thing that the two stories have in common is that the culprit is thinly characterised. I'd have liked a bit more about the murderer's character in both books, but this isn't a major complaint. Carmichael specialised in page-turners and although, when viewed in the cold light of day, his books often have flaws, they make such smooth reading that those weaknesses are easy to forgive and, sometimes, to overlook completely.