Forgotten Book - Vegetable Duck

John Rhode, like so many of his Detection Club colleagues, was fascinated by true crime, and he was one of those novelists (Raymond Chandler, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and recently P.D. James, are others) who was enthralled by the mystery surrounding the Wallace case. Did the mild-mannered insurance agent William Wallace batter his wife Julia to death with a poker, or was someone else guilty? To this day, there is not a total consensus. Sayers suspected he was innocent, but I'm not sure Rhode took the same view.

He adapted the case for fictional purposes in The Telephone Call in 1948, but he'd also made use of it four years earlier in Vegetable Duck, which is my Forgotten Book for today. Here is where I confess my ignorance - "vegetable duck" is apparently a delicacy of sorts, a marrow stuffed with mince, which happens to be the favourite foodstuff of one of the characters in the novel. I must admit, though, that I'd never heard of it. And it's not on the menu at any of the happily numerous pubs which do meals in this neck of the woods!

Rhode makes explicit reference, more than once, to the Wallace case in this book. The circumstances of the murder are very different from those in the original crime - you guessed it, the vegetable duck is poisoned - and the setting is a reasonably prosperous part of London rather than a northern city. But the type of "alibi" put forward by Wallace is used by the victim's husband here. Dr Priestley utters words of wisdom in the background, but the main detecting is done by a cop, Jimmy Waghorn, who often featured in Rhode stories.

I enjoyed this book. It was crisp and readable, and contained a number of points of interest. Rhode's technique means that I was able to spot the culprit on first appearance, but the means by which the dreadful deed were done remained unclear to me at that stage. "Means" fascinated Rhode rather more than they do me, or most other modern writers. But he was a capable performer, and this is a good example of his post-war work.

Forgotten Book - The Telephone Call

My choice for today's Forgotten Book dates back to 1948. The Telephone Call by John Rhode is a sound example of crime fiction inspired by a real-life case. The case in question is one of the most celebrated true crime mysteries of the 20th century, the Wallace case. And it's a murder mystery that has long intrigued me, partly because it has so many fascinating aspects and partly because it occurred in Liverpool, a city I know well.

Dorothy L Sayers and Raymond Chandler were amongst those who are fascinated by the Wallace story and Sayers wrote about it at some length. There was a widespread (although by no means universal) consensus that Wallace did not murder his wife, although many years passed before diligent investigative journalism produced a plausible theory about an alternative culprit, whom it was impossible to bring to justice.

John Rhode apparently used elements from the Wallace story in an earlier novel, Vegetable Duck, which I have not yet read. The Telephone Call does, however, follow the real-life scenario quite closely. Rhode acknowledges in a note at the outset that "this story is based on a celebrated murder trial" although he hastens to insist that "his treatment of it and the solution he propound are entirely imaginary".

Most of the detective work in the novel is undertaken by Superintendent Jimmy Waghorn of Scotland Yard, but he finds it necessary to consult more than once Rhode's most famous amateur sleuth, Dr Lancelot Priestley. This is a soundly constructed novel with an interesting solution, although since that solution depends upon the character of the victim, and Rhode fails adequately to characterise her for most of the book, it falls short of excellence. In fact, in this respect it is a good example of the shortcomings of detective novels which focus heavily upon alibis rather than strong characterisation of the key players in the drama. Yet despite its failings, The Telephone Call is a good illustration of true crime rendered as fiction, and I certainly found it well worth reading.