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Book Review: THE 12.30 FROM CROYDON (1934) by Freeman Wills Crofts

5/25/2020

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Freeman Wills Crofts is a Golden Age Mystery author whose reputation, or infamy, has long preceded him in my mind. I have managed never to read a book of Crofts – I don't even think I had sampled a short story – through my decades of hungry classic crime consumption. And the reason for this was one of prejudice and stereotype: he is the most humdrum of Humdrum writers, and his puzzles are obsessed with suspect alibis and railway timetables (Crofts worked as a railway engineer) to such an extent that there is no room for characterization or color. Knowing what attracts and repels me within the genre, this formula sounded like the least interesting variant I could imagine, a sort of novel-length algebra lesson where one arrives at Murderer X through mathematical proofs, with all work tediously shown.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I finished reading my first Crofts story, The 12.30 from Croydon – even the title evokes red-penciled timetables and phlegmatic inspection of tickets – only to find that I had experienced a well-paced tale with an admirable amount of intrigue, character psychology, and even pathos. I will be very curious to learn whether this 1934 inverted mystery is an anomaly among Crofts' many other works or if I have breezily underestimated a writer I never really explored. But Croydon, at least, is quite winning in its construction and execution, and while puzzle and whodunit fans may feel cheated to view proceedings from the perspective of the killer, I found that the approach gave the story an immediacy and humanity that I hadn't expected from the author.

Charles Swinburn is an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure: his electric motor manufacturing company is feeling the squeeze of a national recession, the woman he is courting won't commit to marriage without the promise of a secure future, and the good men who serve as his employees rely on the factory for their livelihoods. Appeals to Andrew Crowther, Charles' elderly and ailing uncle, fall on deaf ears, and Andrew refuses to give his nephew an advance on his inheritance, even though not doing so places the family business in jeopardy. (Andrew accuses Charles of improper management, although the reader understands that external economics are to blame.) After other alternatives have been exhausted, Charles starts to consider methods for speeding along his aged uncle's impending demise.

Charles has a sister and brother-in-law, and it is in Peter Morley's presence that Uncle Andrew expires, after taking a fatal pill disguised as an indigestion tablet. Complicating matters for the police, but initially strengthening Charles' alibi, is the fact that death occurs on an aeroplane, as the family (minus Charles) flies across the Channel to Paris to attend to an emergency. For a short time, the reluctant murderer believes his actions to be a success; however, it isn't long before another party puts the pieces together and tries a spot of blackmail, forcing Charles to plan a second and darker murder.

What struck me throughout was how carefully and purposefully Crofts makes his antihero a sympathetic but still amoral character. Charles Swinburn becomes a premeditated killer by degrees, and the author gives him a strong sense of ethics and intelligence, the latter allowing him to rationalize his choice to go against the former. This is the opposite of an uncomplicated sketch of a villain, one who only needs to get the plot started through his scheming, and I appreciate Crofts' attention to detail. Charles tries multiple avenues to raise money to save his company and keep his men employed, and when he first wishes that his old uncle would die sooner rather than later, a strong moral compunction pushes the thought aside.

The obstacle, too, is formidable and unyielding: Charles tries to reason with Andrew and indeed makes persuasive arguments and appeals, but the old man does not relent. The reader goes on much the same journey as the protagonist, which really provides added dimensions to a story that could have been delivered as a routine and emotionless police procedural.

That procedural aspect does come in at the end, when Inspector French – who we are told has just been promoted to Chief-Inspector – recounts the steps taken to build a case for the prosecution away from Peter Morley and right to Charles. This conversation happens over the final two chapters and is told anecdotally over a round of drinks with a reporter, a police captain, and Charles' own defense attorney (after the trial, I should clarify). It's also merely informationally interesting and has none of the dramatic propulsion of the central story; perhaps this isn't a surprise since it is literally a scene of explanation and anticlimax. Crofts keeps his detective very much at the periphery during The 12.30 from Croydon, which works very well here but which I suspect is atypical within the series. Along with the smart sustained build in following Charles Swinburn's steps to murder, the criminal trial is the other dramatic highlight, a wonderfully observed sequence of hope and despair for the accused, with the reader invited to view proceedings from his nerve-frayed perspective.

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One other observation: it is clear that Freeman Wills Crofts has an affinity for all things mechanical, and the trans-Atlantic flight, this one seen through the eyes of a 12-year old girl, is described in wondrous and accurate detail. Young Rose Morley experiences the thrill of ascent, the wheels spinning until they no longer touch the ground, then the cabin tilt and the engine noise leveling as the plane's speed allows for a break in the sound barrier. It must have been quite entertaining for readers in 1934, most of whom would likely find travel by air as great and mystifying a novelty as Rose does; Crofts provides the details and makes sure they are right.

I, on the other hand, was wrong. I am quite happy that my prejudices were challenged and that my first Freeman Wills Crofts story was a strong and surprising one. I plan to pick up another Inspector (or Chief-Inspector) French mystery at some point, and I shall see what the mathematic ratio of characterization to timetable analysis will be then.


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Book Review: DEATH AT BREAKFAST (1936) by John Rhode

5/9/2020

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At first glance, the murders seemed unrelated, even as they both concerned employees of the accounting firm of Slater & Knott. First, the rather antisocial office worker Victor Harleston dies of poison at the breakfast table; and then, after paying a visit to the Torquay home of his business partner, Edwin Knott disappears, along with a tidy sum of cash that he was carrying for deposit. In the former death, Superintendent Hanslet strongly suspects Harleston’s half-brother Philip; in the latter, all signs point to the founder’s temperamental son, Gavin Slater. Along with Junior Station-Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, Hanslet becomes more and more mystified until he consults Dr. Priestley, who is able to see the events from a new and enlightening perspective.

John Rhode’s mysteries are never exactly confounding, but Death at Breakfast offers a number of ancillary puzzles that are specific and intriguing: who was the unknown man outside the house on the morning of Harleston’s murder? How was the victim poisoned with nicotine-laced coffee if a report shows no ingestion of the substance in his stomach? Why did the two partners differ so in their view of the firm’s financial status? Who drew a crude picture of a gun on a wall at a potential crime scene, and why? As Dr. Priestley stories go, this one is lengthy but enjoyable, with a great amount of theorizing from Hanslet and Waghorn and a solution that will likely be as obvious to the seasoned reader of detective stories as it is to the quiet but correct doctor.

Adding to the padding is an interesting (if unnecessary to the plot) and detailed account of a 19th century European nicotine poisoning case. This true-crime anecdote certainly appears to be a source of inspiration to the author here, and he allows Jimmy Waghorn to expound for pages over similarities between the murder he is investigating and the poisoning of Gustave Fougnies by his sister and brother-in-law in 1850. Certainly the Comte and Comtesse de Bocarmé were less imaginative in their approach to murder – overpowering and forcing their victim to swallow the stuff – than Rhode’s resourceful villain in Death at Breakfast.

This was the first Dr. Priestley mystery I experienced as an audiobook, and John Rhode’s unadorned reportage style of storytelling makes for an easy listening experience. Many thanks to Anna M. of Germany, who brought the author’s titles on audiobook to my attention!

There was one aspect that may have been made more prominent because I was listening to a reader performing each character’s dialogue, but it is a common element of some Golden Age Detective fiction, and of Rhode’s books in particular. Superintendent Hanslet assumes the rather utilitarian role that many official police characters perform in these stories: he is very capable of collecting evidence and advancing theories, but his energy with these tasks is directly proportional to the limits of his thinking. (This must be so in order for the brilliant amateur detective to take the reins and deliver the solution before the plodding copper can.) The paradox here is that Rhode paints Hanslet as a man who, upon hearing that feline blood is found at the scene of a mighty fight inside a room, has a mind nimble enough to imagine a tussle with an escaped tiger may have occurred, but is not intuitive enough to think that a person may have used cat’s blood for the purposes of misdirection. It’s a strange tightrope walk between intelligence and ignorance, and I’m not sure that the author keeps his character convincingly in the air at all times.

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Still, for classic mystery fans Death at Breakfast has much to recommend. For Cecil John Charles Street, whose devilishly prolific nature meant that this was just one of five novels he published in the year 1936 alone under the John Rhode and Miles Burton pseudonyms, there’s much to admire in his presentation of a straightforward (if lengthy) murder puzzle well told. You can find other online reviews of this title by equally prolific (and perhaps devilish) GAD experts Nick Fuller, Martin Edwards, Aidan, and The Puzzle Doctor.

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