Tecs messaging

THE CASE OF THE MISSING MEN (Christopher Bush, 1946)

**

Ludovic Travers investigates strangling of egomaniac detective writer.  It’s blindingly obvious from very early on that a) Preston is obviously Chaice in disguise; b) that Bush is going to serve it up as a big surprise in the last chapter (I was wrong, it’s the second last); and c) who the murderer is.

Ralph Partridge (New Statesman, 27 April 1946) wrote: “Spotting the villain becomes all too easy in The Case of the Missing Men, which never deviates from the most elementary methods of mystification.  Ludovic Travers is a beginner’s detective, always several moves behind the reader in his deductions.  Waiting for him to catch up is as tedious as going for a walk with a six-year-old child.”

There’s also supposed to be a sketch map – which didn’t get into the reprint.

For a more enthusiastic review, see TomCat’s page.

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FATAL RELATIONS (Margaret Erskine, 1955)

****

Good ‘un, this.  No great tricks, but you’ll enjoy this village murder mystery, which has lots of murders, and plenty of atmosphere.  Suspects include an amnesiac (or is he?), a military man who massacred an African tribe for kicks, a vicar with OCD, and an adulteress.  The opening chapter at a funeral is excellent.

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DANGEROUS DOMICILE (E.C.R. Lorac, 1957)

—

One of those conventional detective stories the English produced in great numbers.  Lively young civil servants (not an oxymoron, apparently) buy a flat, with a corpse on the roof.  Inspector MacDonald turns up and asks lots of questions, mainly about keys and windows.  Entire chapters in Cockney.  I lost interest halfway through.

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THE PAPER CHASE (Julian Symons, 1956)

****

A young detective writer takes a job as a teacher at a progressive school, and finds himself in an imbroglio of spies, Nazis, gangsters, and corrupt politicians (compulsive anal sadists).  The detective writer’s first book is Where Dons Delight, a story of University life complete with a pornographic library, a don who thinks he’s a vampire bat, and mind-altering drugs.  Symons’ plot isn’t much tamer.  He’s apparently writing an homage to Michael Innes.  “A pleasing fancy, Applegate thought, but no doubt inaccurate.”