Forgotten Book - The Perfect Murder Case

My Forgotten Book for today is an early effort by the prolific Christopher Bush, who began writing in the Golden Age and kept going through the Swinging Sixties. The Perfect Murder Case (1929) is, as far as I know, the very first of those mystery novels in which a murderer plays a game with the police, and to that extent it is a pioneering effort.

Various newspapers, as well as New Scotland Yard, receive a letter from “Marius” which opens: “I am going to commit a murder.” He adds that “by giving the law its sporting chance I raise the affair from the brutal to the human.” You don’t get such sportsmanship in crime nowadays!

More letters follow, giving extra clues, and causing a popular sensation: “Flapperdom arranged murder parties at hotels. The Ragamuffin Club had a special dance gala and a gallows scene painted for it...medical students organised a gigantic rag. An enormous fortune must have been laid in bets...what Marius had intended to be the sublime was likely to become the gorblimey.”

The detective work is mainly done by a former cop called Franklin, although Bush’s usual protagonist, Ludovic Travers, contributes to solving the puzzle. There is a lot to admire about this book, but I did feel that the investigation became rather rambling and I couldn’t summon up much interest in either the victim or the suspects. Bush was a writer whose limitations kept him out of the top rank. But he had talent, and interesting and relatively fresh ideas, and The Perfect Murder Case is sure to interest anyone keen on the history of the genre.

Forgotten Book - The Case of the Chinese Gong

My choice for today’s Forgotten Book is Christopher Bush’s 1935 novel, The Case of the Chinese Gong. This is one of a long series of books featuring Bush’s amateur sleuth Ludovic Travers ( I believe he later became a private detective), who here aids and abets the Chief Constable in solving a domestic mystery.

This is one of those books in which the victim is an elderly and wealthy old chap with remarkably few redeeming features. Hubert Greeve is as mean and unpleasant as his name suggests, and there is no shortage of suspects when he is shot to death in his own home.

The suspects include four cousins who have fallen on hard times, as well as the family solicitor. Another question for Travers is whether the butler did it – this character certainly seems to be hiding a few secrets. The plot is quite elaborate, and a rough plan of the crime scene is provided. The real question is "howdunit?"

This is a competent story that begins well. The second chapter is called “Murder is Easy”. Did Agatha Christie borrow the phrase for her book of that name? Did Richard Hull turn it around when he wrote Murder isn’t Easy? We may never know. I did feel that the writing became flat in the middle of the book in particular and Travers is not a particularly memorable sleuth. Writing a compelling "howdunit" novel is a tough task: the danger is that interest focuses on the central trick and the pace drags. Bush was a decent writer, but very prolific, and it might just be that he slowed down the production rate and worked more on character and atmosphere, his fame would have lasted better than it has done.