Forgotten Book - Which Way Came Death?

Which Way Came Death? written by Faith Wolseley, and published by John Murray in 1936, is my Forgotten Book for today, and it really is forgotten. I'd be very surprised if more than one or two of my readers have come across it. And yet it was, in its day, a very well regarded and well reviewed novel. With some justice, I should say, as the writing is elegant and often witty.

The book is presented as a first novel, yet although it was the first under the Wolseley name, it was not really a debut, for the author had previously dipped a toe into the waters of detection with two books under what was, I understand, her real name, Stella Tower. Dumb Vengeance, which really was her first novel, was one of my Forgotten Books recently.

The Tower book was set in a country house. The Wolseley novel is set against another background that was popular in Golden Age detective fiction: the public school. Anthony Berkeley, James Hilton, Nicholas Blake, Christopher Bush and Gladys Mitchell were among those who made good use of school setting in the Thirties, but the wit and insight into school life in this book calls to mind R.C. Woodthorpe's The Public School Murder. Wolseley's writing did not have the political edge of Woodthorpe's, but is none the worse for that.


It becomes clear early on that a schoolmaster called Stoner is the likely murder victim, and we are led to believe that poison may be the murder weapon - but how will it be administered? The head teacher's wife is a memorable character who plays a central role in the story, and I was not surprised to discover that the author was herself the wife of a public school teacher. The story flags a bit in the middle, as in Dumb Vengeance, before perking up again. The plot is nothing special, but the quality of the writing lifts this one out of the ordinary.

Forgotten Book - A Dagger in Fleet Street

My Forgotten Book for today is R.C. Woodthorpe's second novel, A Dagger in Fleet Street, first published in 1934, and applauded at the time, but now neglected and very difficult to find. In fact, I owe my copy to a kind person who supplied it to me when all other attempts came to nothing. And, as usual with Woodthope, the book boasts a number of attractive features.

This is, like Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, a workplace mystery. Woodthorpe had set his debut novel, The Public School Murder in a fictional version of the place where he used to teach. He moved from education to journalism with the Daily Herald, which in the novel becomes the Daily Hope. And Woodthorpe's knowledge of newspaper life makes his portrayal of it more powerful and authentic than Christopher St John Sprigg's entertaining Fatality in Fleet Street, published at much the same time.

Woodthorpe is good not only at describing the nature of journalistic life, but also at capturing the uncertainty faced by working people in the aftermath of the Slump. No job was safe, and one character says, "Thank God for the National Union of Journalists." That isn't the sort of sentiment that is generally associated with Golden Age detective fiction is it? An illustration, I suggest, of how the Golden Age is frequently misunderstood. Woodthorpe's writing regularly reflected his political views. The same woman turns out to be a communist; she is portrayed positively throughout, though she is smart enough not to reveal her political views to the newspaper's proprietor, or the acting editor, who is a "petty Mussolini," and who finishes up with the titular dagger in his throat.

Woodthorpe supplies some very good lines, and sharp social comedy. The only snag is that he is obviously uninterested in his plot. He was a writer, I think, who used the detective form as a peg to hang his writing on, but he was not very good at constructing a mystery. The puzzle, involving a rather insipid and ridiculous campaign by the newspaper against a pretty young woman, is third rate at best. But I'm really glad I read th book, because it gave me an insight, albeit quite light-hearted, into life in Fleet Street at a fascinating time of our history.

Forgotten Book - The Public School Murder

R.C. Woodthorpe was a pretty successful author in the 1930s, and his best known novel, which I have in a green Penguin edition, is my Forgotten Book for today. This is The Public School Murder, and its school setting, Polchester, is evidently based on Christ’s Hospital, where Woodthorpe taught in the Twenties before going into journalism.

The story is agreeably written, and it makes a virtue of the public school ethos, about which views are probably as divided today as they were in the Golden Age. Much of the tale is told from the viewpoint of one of the teachers, although it is the head of the governing body of the school who eventually acts as amateur detective and comes up with a solution to the mystery of how Polchester’s headmaster died.

I’ve never read anything else by Woodthorpe, but I would like to do so. The trouble is that his books are now rather elusive – it would be good if someone could bring them back into print.  However, very little information seems to be available about Woodthorpe, and such detection work as I’ve been able to do has been rather poignant.

His full name was Ralph Carter Woodthorpe, and he lived until 1971. But he gave up writing following the outbreak of the war, and soon his reputation became shrouded in obscurity. He was a good enough writer to have been elected to the Detection Club in 1935 – yet his name is nowadays not even included on the list of the Club’s past members! Very sad, but at least I can do my best to put that right. He doesn’t deserve to be so neglected, but it’s sobering to be reminded yet again of the transience of success.