Forgotten Book - The House of Dr Edwardes

The writing partnership of John Palmer and Hilary Saunders, who collaborated as Francis Beeding (and other pen-names as well) was arguably the finest British crime-writing combination of the Golden Age. They were best known for their thrillers, but their occasional detective stories were of high calibre, and I'd put books like Death Walks in Eastrepps and The Norwich Victims far ahead of anything written by once-renowned detective writers such as, say, G.D.H. and Margaret Cole.

Their fourth book, published in 1927, was The House of Dr Edwardes. It was turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock - Spellbound, a much better title, it has to be said. I'll talk about the film another day, but overall I think it's more impressive than the novel. The novel isn't my favourite Beeding by a long chalk. But the storyline has some memorable features, characteristic of their work, which explain why it caught Hitchcock's attention.

Dr Edwardes is a famous psychiatrist, but he's been suffering from overwork, and he leaves the asylum that he manages in the Alps in the care of a Dr Murchison and a newly recruited young female doctor. A violent incident results in the incarceration of a patient, but the new woman starts to wonder if it's possible that, to coin a phrase, the lunatics have taken charge of the asylum.

One thing that's very evident from this book is that people with mental health problems were regarded very differently in the Twenties than they are today. Quite a bit of fun is poked at their strange ways, and some of this makes the modern reader feel uncomfortable. By and large, however, Beeding treats the insane characters a little more generously than did some Golden Age writers. At the time it was written, this was an original and entertaining book, though in my opinion it has worn much less well than some of Beeding's other work. Even so, if you've ever watched Spellbound, you might like to sample the book which inspired the film.

Forgotten Book - He Could Not Have Slipped

He Could Not Have Slipped, my Forgotten Book for today by Francis Beeding, has one of those titles that you simply don't come across these days.It's an odd one, and cunningly chosen. At first, the reader thinks its meaning is obvious. But there is more to the title than meets the eye, and although this book is not quite at the same level of excellence as classics like Death Walks in Eastrepps, and The Norwich Victims, it is still very readable and displays the qualities of plotting and sound, thoughtful writing that made Beeding's name notable in the Thirties.

The Beeding name concealed the identities of two friends who worked together for the League of Nations, and their inside knowledge of the League's workings (and, they make very clear, shortcomings) is put to very good use in this story. They also combine aspects of the thriller with a neat whodunit mystery, and although I'm less familiar with their thrillers, since my Golden Age preference is for whodunits, this book tempts me to give more of them a try.

The Geneva setting is conveyed with conviction, and Beeding manages to introduce into a story of international crime Inspector George Martin, who appeared in The Norwich Victims and No Fury, another story I enjoyed. There is also a neat spin on the idea of the altruistic crime, much canvassed by writers of the Golden Age. A likeable, well-intentioned man who has devoted his life to looking after refugees become frustrated by the League's weakness. This leads him into a criminal conspiracy, and the misadventures of a co-conspirator who happens to be a dodgy lawyer (yes, they do exist) result in murder. But there is more to this story than at first meets the eye.

I really like the way Beeding made a number of sharp political points without becoming heavy-handed or didactic. This book dates from 1939,and it seems clear to me that the co-authors were deeply concerned about the League's weakness in the face of tyranny. But their main concern, quite properly in a book of this kind, was to entertain, and they succeeded. Yes, the central trick is not terribly difficult to fathom out, but it is handled with elegant economy. All in all, a little-known title that deserves to be resurrected.

Why Re-Read a Detective Story?

What is the point of re-reading a detective story? After all, if you know whodunit, surely it's a waste of time? This is an argument I've come across a good many times over the years. And there are certainly plenty of detective stories that most readers may doubt were worth reading once, let alone twice. (Mind you, that's true of plenty of books outside the crime genre, as well.) But I think a great deal of pleasure may be gained from re-reading a good whodunit, even if you can still remember who committed the crime and why.

A case in point is Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding. I first read this novel in my twenties, but it has stuck in my mind ever since, and its reappearance as an Arcturus Crime Classic prompted me to give it another go. I knew the identity of the surprise culprit, and the even more surprising motive, but I was interested to see how the two authors who co-wrote under the Beeding name handled their tricky plot.

In this book, as in their The Norwich Victims, which I also re-read recently, they shift scenes and viewpoints regularly, giving the story a filmic quality. (Unsurprisingly, Alfred Hitchcock adapted another of their novels, which became Spellbound.) Even by today's frenetic standards, the book does not lack pace. It's an early serial killer novel, and there are half a dozen victims, before the culprit (or apparent culprit) is finally tracked down - after the original prime suspect had turned out to be innocent, if deranged.

There is a good courtroom sequence before a series of short and snappy scenes lead up to the final dramatic revelation. I was impressed by the way Beeding orchestrated a complicated storyline, and admiration of authorial craft is in itself a good reason to give a book a second reading. There are so many books I'll never read even once that I suppose I ought to feel guilty about spending time on a story I remembered pretty well. But I don't regret it at all, because I found it just as enjoyable the second time around as the first.

Forgotten Book - The Norwich Victims

I've mentioned The Norwich Victims, by Francis Beeding, several times in previous blog posts. It's timely to feature the novel as today's Forgotten Book, since Arcturus have now brought out a mass market paperback edition. I'm very glad to see this - not least because a while ago, I encouraged their very pleasant and enthusiastic crime editor to take a look at both this book and Henry Wade's Lonely Magdalen. I'm delighted to say that Arcturus subsequently decided to bring these two excellent stories back for a new generation of readers to enjoy.

Having read the book before, I knew the ingenious plot twist that makes The Norwich Victims so special, but I found that this did not spoil my enjoyment. Rather, I had the chance to admire the skill with which Beeding (a pen-name for two writing friends) skated over rather thin ice. I also felt that the smooth and highly readable writing style has stood the test of time. The same cannot be said of all detective novels of a similar vintage.This story first appeared in 1931, and the duo's few detective stories are very good indeed. I haven't yet tried their spy thrillers.

Two separate storylines gradually merge. John Throgmorton is a dodgy stockbroker who lives with a pretty younger woman called Hermione. Into their clutches fall a woman who has a winning ticket in a French lotery of very great value. And Throgmorton decides to kill her for it, so that Hermione can impersonate her and grab the money. Meanwhile, at the school where the victim worked, a young woman, the niece of the school's owner, Robert Hedlam, has fallen for George Martin, a clean-cut cop who is put in charge of the murder case.

There are plenty of plot complications, and the pace is excellent from start to finish. Really, this book is a model of its kind. I accept that the culprit's psychology is not explored fully, and if the story were being rewritten today, this gap would need to be filled. But in the whole scheme of things,it doesn't matter much. The Norwich Victims is a very clever and entertaining book and a worthy addition to the list of Arcturus Crime Classics.

Forgotten Book - No Fury

My Forgotten Book for today is No Fury by Francis Beeding, a name which concealed an interesting writing duo who both worked for the League of Nations (and no doubt enjoyed name-checking the League a time or two in this book.) The book first appeared in 1936, and features the rather likeable youngish Inspector Martin, who starred in the earlier, and excellent, The Norwich Victims.

Like the earlier book, this one starts with the inclusion of several photographs, although this time, they are not quite as crucial or as cleverly integrated with the story as a whole. That story opens with a popular novelist, Valerie Beauchamp, who proves to be a very unpleasant individual, corresponding with a secret admirer. But it turns out that she is the victim of a rather cruel hoax perpetrated by a group of "friends".

Soon Valerie is found battered to death and so disfigured that she can only be identified by her dental records. The murderer is not found, but soon the hoaxers start to be murdered, one by one. The pace is fast, and Beeding uses multiple viewpoints very effectively, not least in a pretty good court scene which ends with a hung jury.

I found this novel entertaining and very readable. There were, however, a couple of major flaws which meant that it falls well short of being the classic it might have been. I can't say more without really spoiling the story, as the flaws concern the otherwise ingenious twist in the tale. But Beeding, who mainly wrote thrillers, had the knack of pacing a story well, and in comparison with many Golden Age mysteries, this one zips along so well that the failings were pretty well compensated for. Worth looking out for, but not easy to find, and not as good as The Norwich Victims..

Casts of Characters

I was away in Oxfordshire over the weekend and we stayed with someone who mentioned that he can find it frustrating if books contain plenty of characters. This is an observation I’ve heard on a number of occasions, often from very busy people who only have time to read books in short segments, and who therefore can easily lose track of who is who. I find the same problem myself from time to time.

When I returned home, I had the pleasure of finding a very generous review of The Arsenic Labyrinth on that splendid blog Crime Scraps (blog supreme Uriah occasionally sets a fiendish crime quiz – well worth looking out for.) Uriah made a comparable point about the complexity of the character relationships, and it made me wonder – yet again – whether it would be a good idea to include character lists at the start of my books.

This device was used quite often in the past (Christianna Brand and Ngaio Marsh both employed it, for instance.) In the classic reprints published by that excellent small American press, Rue Morgue Press, there are generally character lists. I find these rather helpful, but I do know that some readers are instinctively sceptical about books which start off with a cast of characters. Someone once told me that they wouldn’t read such a book, because they would infer that the writer hadn’t taken enough care to delineate the characters in a memorable fashion. A comment that deterred me from including a cast list, I must admit.

Incidentally, I should mention a clever mystery by Francis Beeding, The Norwich Victims. This went further by including photographs of the main characters – with accompanying red herring! Most ingenious, and it did make me wonder if there have been cast lists which contain clues or red herrings.

Anyway, I would be interested in the views of readers of this blog on casts of characters. Is there a revival of interest in having a cast list, would you say? Or is it to be seen as an admission of failure on the part of the author?