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Book Review: A BLOODY SCANDAL (1985) by George Milner

8/30/2016

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This late entry by occasional crime novelist George Milner has an amoral Royal Navy man as its antihero protagonist, as well as a gleefully nihilistic – and sometimes misogynist – tone. It is also likely a partial reworking of the author’s 1966 novel A Leave-Taking, which I recently received and which, upon perusal, appears to share the main character, the intention to commit murder while fly-fishing in Scotland, and this quotation from The Master of Ballantrae: “I am a pretty bad fellow at bottom, and I find the pretence of virtue very irksome.” Despite – or, more accurately, because of – the book’s capriciously cruel characters, plot, and tone, A Bloody Scandal was for me a worthwhile, even thought-provoking tale.

At center is Rear Admiral Peter Farquarson, who has returned from a gun battle in the South China Sea that managed to resolve in a way that left him a naval and national hero. The bureaucratic interviews and official red tape bore Farquarson to pieces, and he soon begins to think about how he can chase the enormous inheritance of his brother’s ex-wife (from her side of the family; Farquarson’s brother Colin has wasted the family fortune) and set himself up for a comfortable retirement. As the legacy is entailed in a way that connects it to the three Morrison daughters, and finally to their only offspring, Emily’s daughter Victoria, the navy hero decides to marry one and eliminate the rest.

Thus begins Farquarson’s quest, and to that end this slim book (at less than 200 pages) is expertly paced. There is nothing better than an active protagonist boldly reaching for his goal, and while the character is bluntly charming, he is also reckless in his parries, relying more on luck and bravado than any reasonable premeditated murderer might. And believably, Farquarson’s luck holds. He hires an ex-SAS mercenary named Silver – ironically, through Colin, who will become an early victim – to help him with his scheme, and manages to get away with much of it despite strategies that are more often full-blown assaults: arson, car bombs and poison-tipped umbrella points are not exactly subtle, nor do they present the appearance of anything other than murder to the police.

The police, it is amusing to note, take the form of Vraismouth and Toothboy, two detectives from different districts who confer on the sequence that has given them each a victim or two. While discussing events over drinks – always over drinks – Toothboy believes Farquarson is behind the killings, but Vraismouth is skeptical and uninterested in acquiring more work. Besides, argues Vraismouth, would the man be so brazen to leave Mars bar wrappers scattered about the crime scene and risk being seen in a ludicrous fake disguise? Better to leave it alone.

A Bloody Scandal may be most intriguing to me for its cynicism about society’s positive qualities: notably, Milner argues that society doesn’t really have any. No character in this book is in love with another, and sexual couplings are always undertaken for a particular gain. Farquarson’s plan is cold and remorseless, but so are the personalities of most of his victims. This would make for a dispiriting read except for Milner’s constant winking that this world has its priorities profoundly off-balance: bloody murder sells papers and encourages gossip, but the scandal of the title refers to an ungentlemanly gambit Farquarson makes while playing bridge at a club, much to the anger of his opponent at the table.


Our anti-hero also shocks his well-heeled audience at a speaking event when he uses his speech to talk not about his sea battle but of the statistics to calculate the average number of women a man will sleep with during a lifetime. The speech scandalizes everyone and, of course, makes him a highly coveted dinner guest. The hypocrisy of society’s public attitudes and private appetites is apparent throughout: people marry for money but engage in adulterous flings; government departments appoint or ignore war heroes as it suits them; card playing carries greater value than human life. In a reality like that, Farquarson’s amorality seems almost reasonable, and perhaps the only way to succeed.

Interestingly, Kirkus Reviews found the book “uninspiring” and a “mini-entertainment at best.” The reviewer states that the anecdotes – which I believe illustrate Farquarson’s naughty-child defiance of the prudish societal rules that he can’t stand – are merely “diversions and digressions.” (He or she also calls Milner a “first-novelist,” which he decidedly is not.) While not for all tastes, A Bloody Scandal is a happily venomous little story, and its author has managed to use that contradictory tone and his anarchist protagonist to say something quite valid about the hypocrisy of British society.


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Book Review: GOLD WAS OUR GRAVE (1954) by Henry Wade

8/20/2016

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Gold Was Our Grave is the first title I have read by Henry Wade, one of many unjustly neglected writers from Britain’s Golden Age of Detection literature. His detective, Inspector John Poole, was introduced in 1929’s The Duke of York’s Steps, and Wade – the pseudonym of Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher – delivered nearly 20 more mysteries over the following two and a half decades. Gold is one of Wade’s final titles, published in 1954. (I gladly chose it to meet the reading challenge from Past Offences, a great website whose Crimes of the Century invites the community to celebrate mystery and suspense offerings produced during specific years.) This title mixes fair-play detection with an absorbing police procedural format, and succeeds admirably.


This story could have proven a dry exercise in puzzle plotting, its author content to push his characters around like chess pieces until the solution is revealed. Instead, Wade accomplishes more: he gives the reader a glimpse of believable inter-departmental case-building, with Poole using his colleagues and police contacts (including Chief-Inspector Lackett of C.6 division, specializing in fraud and financial crime, and Detective-Constable Riddling, Poole’s feet on the ground) to follow leads and scrutinize alibis. This group detective work invites the reader to appreciate the well-paced, cumulative experience; other “machinery of justice” resources here are similarly well-defined, from a communication with the American Federal Bureau of Investigation – looking into the provenance of a murder weapon bought in Chicago – to a perfectly observed solicitor for the defense who understands completely just how much he can hear from his client before legal (if not ethical) waters become muddied.

In addition to painting an appealing picture of the larger criminal investigation process, Wade also succeeds in populating his puzzle with characters that possess just the right amount of pathos to come alive, but not so much emotional verisimilitude that the genre is jeopardized. At its heart, Gold Was Our Grave is a tragedy, and it is to Wade’s credit that he uses his detective’s formal position to look dispassionately at events, thus avoiding melodrama.


The story: financial speculator Hector Berrenton is involved in a near-fatal car accident, the result of a disconnected steering-track rod and a precipitously sharp turn on the road near his home. The wreck could have been due to the neglect of his disagreeable chauffeur and mechanic, except for the arrival of an anonymous letter posted the day before and addressed to the driver: SAN PODINO. THIS IS YOURS. FALLON NEXT.

PictureA location map accompanying Henry Wade's Gold Was Our Grave (1954).
Fallon, we quickly learn, is Mr. Jocelyn Fallon, Berrenton’s business partner, and San Podino is the name of a gold mine of which the pair sold stocks to the public. While the financiers sold their shares in time to avoid ruin, the public was not as lucky. The case went to trial – did Berrenton have knowledge of the mine’s worthlessness prior to offering the public options? – but both partners were acquitted. Is a scorned investor seeking revenge? Or is the note a misdirection to conceal the attempted murderer’s true motive?

If the latter, the suspect list changes from general to specific, and includes Julian Berrenton, Hector’s son, who may be too accustomed to the good life; Jocelyn Fallon, whose relationship with his business partner may not be as friendly as it looks; ex-secretary Mr. Rightson, who lost his job due to the scandal; and current secretary Daphne Gordon, who appears to be having an affair with the married Fallon.

The road accident turns out to be a prelude, however, and one fateful Thursday a second attack occurs, and this one claims a victim. Fallon is found stabbed in his car, which he parked near the office building while Hector Berrenton and Daphne Gordon worked late. It is up to Chief-Inspector Poole and his network of associates to steadily build a case that will identify the architect of a very premeditated plan for murder.

I greatly enjoyed the capable presentation and assured plotting and pacing of this book; while I am usually not observant enough to arrive at a solution ahead of a Golden Age detective, the pieces fell into place here about halfway through the story. This was satisfying, as Poole then explores the same lines soon afterwards, and even so the author masterfully allows a sliver of doubt to enter Poole’s inner thoughts, planting that wary possibility that the picture may turn once more before all is revealed. There’s a clue in the form of information in the beginning chapters that is hidden in plain sight, and the final explanation is not overly complicated, and indeed benefits from its relative simplicity. It is also affecting that the murderer, when his or her story is told, is perhaps more deserving of sympathy than scorn.

To return to the inner thoughts of Inspector Poole: Wade sometimes allows the reader access to his detective’s mental hesitancies and strategies, and this more intimate narrative perspective adds greatly to the book’s charm. For example, the gesture of a simple civility while interviewing Daphne Gordon in her home fills Poole with regret at his approach:

It would be churlish to refuse, and presently John Poole was enjoying a very drinkable Spanish sherry, sitting in a comfortable chair facing his hostess across the fire. Hostess? That was exactly it; the moment the first glow of comfort coursed through his veins – or whatever it did do – Poole realized that by accepting the drink, and the apology, he had weakened his position; he could not now press his questions as inexorably as he would do to a hostile – a palpably hostile – witness. He had hastily to reconstruct his plan of action.
Such observational detail is not always to be found in classic mystery stories, their authors preferring puzzle over psychology. (And to be fair, many readers voice the same preference.) But to me, such touches are very welcome when done right, and Henry Wade achieves an impressive balance: it’s a thoughtful police procedural unique enough to rise above its station.  
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Book Review: SHARK AMONG HERRINGS (1954) by George Milner

8/6/2016

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For this American, English manor house gatherings in fiction have always held a curious appeal, along with an acute awareness of the strain and strangeness that such artificial living conditions must produce. Evelyn Waugh and P.G. Wodehouse would assemble their cast of characters for a fortnight of garden walking and relationship testing and dressing for a multi-course dinner (attended by servants, naturally). The setting is especially attractive for Golden Age mystery writers because built into the country manor house locale is the opportunity for a finite but varied group of suspects to, through propinquity and purpose, stay in one spot until the crime is solved and the loose ends are tied up.

It’s a way of living that is both exotic and stifling when I consider it today; I’m not sure I could manage several consecutive days surrounded by the same people – many of them relatives – with no goal defined and nothing really to do. The closest analogy for me appears to be the notion of a vacation or holiday, but to realize that English house parties of yesteryear could last weeks and stretch a season, with the house owners acting as interminably obliging and inescapable hosts, the prospect loses some of its romance.

In George Milner’s hybrid mystery Shark among Herrings, Jupiter Insurance Company investigator Ronald Anglesea crashes the desultory country house party of Sidney Manders. Ronald manages to sneak his attractive Girl Friday, Diane, into the group after a few evenings, and together the two learn the circumstances that resulted in the disappearance of Pamela Manders’ valuable rubies. Also staying at the house are two alleged newlyweds, Stephen and Julia Ravensdale – “alleged” as there have been reports of a matching pair of thieves who answer to much the same description – and James Chudleigh, a blustery Scot with a stutter. While James claims to be a copy-writer, he is evasive about exactly what his connection to the host might be.

The communal living begins to wear on the nerves of the guests, and soon the missing jewels are the least of the group’s concerns. Ronald uncovers several small-scale but vindictive blackmail schemes from an unknown source, and Sidney’s son Trevor is still away from the house, although no belongings were taken and Trevor’s disappearance occurred the same night the rubies went missing. While Sidney believes his son had left to prove himself in life, Ronald suspects that the young man may have met a more sinister fate. Added to this is an escalating and ugly battle between John Cross-Rivett and Smash Mainwaring, his insufferable nephew. When John’s rifle is sabotaged with smoke cartridges, the angry hunter thrashes the young man, with Pamela offering encouragement. The next shooting party almost proves deadly, however, as a switched cartridge of a different caliber results in Cross-Rivett’s gun exploding in his face.

From there it seems like bloodshed is inevitable. Smash has become obsessed with anchoring a dinghy at a particular spot on the private loch – is Trevor Manders’ body hidden below? – and launching toy boats on the water. The hobby is ill-chosen: while nearly everyone from the house explores the lake’s floor using diving helmets, a hand rises from the water to stab Smash in the back as he leans over the dinghy’s edge. Detective-Inspector McCulloch investigates, sending divers in, but the knife is not under water and no one had a way of concealing a weapon in a bathing suit. A car chase, a late-night hallway stakeout, and a final rendez-vous at the loch help Ronald Anglesea solve the mystery of the rubies and unmask an unbalanced killer.

Shark among Herrings is Milner’s second (and final) Anglesea novel; the first was 1953’s Stately Homicide.  It’s also the first book by this author I have read, choosing it for the website Past Offences’ Crimes of the Century, a wonderful reader challenge that suggests a new publishing year to reviewers each month. 1954’s Herrings is a highly entertaining read, although its mix of genre styles may prove an obstacle for classic mystery purists. While one half of the book is firmly rooted in Golden Age detective premise and puzzle play, one quarter also delivers some elements usually associated with American hard-boiled fiction: the wise-cracking and solitary detective, the beautiful assistant, described here as “a platinum blonde whose swathes of heavy hair fall straight round her head and droop (by careful arrangement) over one blue eye,” the outbreaks of action and danger. There’s also a thread of criminal psychology and “mania” woven into the plotline, and Milner provides some effectively vivid but far-from-cosy descriptions of violence:

Smash lay dead enough, drooped over the bows, the blood which stained the back of his shapeless tweed jacket already beginning to look a dirty brown in the still bright sunlight. Blood dripped, too, from his mouth, and splashed in sticky drops into the cold, crystal water; each drop spread into red, stringy lines in the sunlit water, then was dissipated like a melting jellyfish.
Such descriptions are rare, though, and the story’s comic tone, steady pace, and genuine cleverness (in method if not necessarily in motive) should appeal to whodunit fans. Milner makes the misstep, in my opinion, of giving his detective a very questionable idée fixe, assuming that Trevor Manders’ absence must equate to murder, and the reader in turn becomes suspicious of Anglesea’s other theories. The sleuth and his author do acquit themselves admirably by the final chapter, and viewing the plotline in retrospect, Milner has crafted a clearly constructed fair-play puzzle. As the author was an officer and submarine-man who served the British Navy during World War II, he doubtless had knowledge of the diving helmets and air tanks that did not need accompanying wetsuits for the swimmers, which the characters use here to support the plot. (I had not heard of a helmet-only option.)

In Shark among Herrings, the shooting is sabotaged, the waters are deadly, and familiarity moves past contempt to incite bloody murder. Which is one more reason why I will think twice if I’m ever invited to an extended country house party.  
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