Synopsis:
As a tale told in a roundelay of secret journal entries by its office employees, it becomes immediately clear that all is not rosy in the halls of the NeO-aD advertising agency. We first meet Nicholas Latimer, copy writer and founding member, bitterly noting the shortcomings of his co-workers. In particular, he cannot stand salesman Paul Spencer’s teasing tone and rash business decisions, such as creating a marketing campaign for a canning company before a client is even signed. Spencer also chides Latimer for his frequent office naps and his penchant for starting every advertisement with the words, “And now, the new…” regardless of the product for sale.
When a promising client from Rumania arrives, hoping to sell the British public a chemical that, while highly poisonous, manages to make treated glass surfaces water- and fog-resistant, Latimer sees the potential for this versatile product. He devises a plan to introduce some of these crystals into Spencer’s afternoon tea and make it appear an accident, but by the end of the day, more than one employee has permanently retired from the agency.
The precise and bottom-line-minded Mr. Barraclough also shares observations of his colleagues – he might or might not be implicated in a separate incident in which Paul Spencer narrowly avoided being hit by a car. The unassuming office secretary Miss Wyndham and product artist Percy Thomas (whose appealing drawings of fruits and vegetables for the prospective client Greyfields Canning Latimer tears to pieces) also offer a perspective on the curious affair. Ironically, the only person not invited to share a commentary on events is Inspector Hoopington, who is either a dull-witted plodder or a clever ally, depending on whom you believe.
Review: Richard Hull’s 1936 offering Murder Isn’t Easy is highly enjoyable and proves a fine example of the author’s talent for delivering amusing characterization and a dryly satirical touch. As the story unfolds through the viewpoints of four different characters, the reader is invited to weigh the (often critical) remarks that each has of his fellow colleagues with what is said or insinuated about him in turn. It is a great pleasure, for example, to read Latimer’s justifications for his frequent absences from the office, as the excuse rings too defensive and speaks volumes about his character:
The precise and bottom-line-minded Mr. Barraclough also shares observations of his colleagues – he might or might not be implicated in a separate incident in which Paul Spencer narrowly avoided being hit by a car. The unassuming office secretary Miss Wyndham and product artist Percy Thomas (whose appealing drawings of fruits and vegetables for the prospective client Greyfields Canning Latimer tears to pieces) also offer a perspective on the curious affair. Ironically, the only person not invited to share a commentary on events is Inspector Hoopington, who is either a dull-witted plodder or a clever ally, depending on whom you believe.
Review: Richard Hull’s 1936 offering Murder Isn’t Easy is highly enjoyable and proves a fine example of the author’s talent for delivering amusing characterization and a dryly satirical touch. As the story unfolds through the viewpoints of four different characters, the reader is invited to weigh the (often critical) remarks that each has of his fellow colleagues with what is said or insinuated about him in turn. It is a great pleasure, for example, to read Latimer’s justifications for his frequent absences from the office, as the excuse rings too defensive and speaks volumes about his character:
“How am I to write good copy, to get new ideas, to keep my brain fresh, if I do not see [by attending a weekday trade show] the work which other people are doing, the way in which they decorate their stands at such an exhibition for instance – in short, if I do not keep in touch with modern sales methods?”
Hull works well when he uses what I call “chamber piece plotting,” meaning that a finite number of characters, such as four or five, play together in an enclosed setting to develop variations on a theme. The previous year’s Keep It Quiet works similarly, involving only a few key members of a much larger London club. And as with that story, Hull changes the playing field here at the halfway point. While the mystery plot is agreeable, it also feels secondary to the real entertainment provided by the comic characterizations and petty grudges each employee seems to hold against the others.
A nod to NeO-aD marketing: handmade art, copy, and lettering, circa mid-1950s. For me, Murder Isn’t Easy carries an additional and especially attractive aspect by painting a simpler, satirical picture of the advertising business from an era long gone. The felicitously lettered NeO-aD agency is modernized well past the ink-stained bustle of Dickensian copy houses from decades prior, but it still traffics in text and art that is charmingly quaint by today’s standards. Print advertisements for blouses and beads and canned goods that display blocks of words and hand-drawn images bring to mind an earlier, more innocent time. Just as much of the fun of reading a Golden Age-era mystery story lies in its ability to transport one to a world where character types, social rules, and class interactions are intriguingly nostalgic and unreal, there’s a similar sense of a wistful past on display here. One easily imagines Barraclough working fussily at the ledgers while Thomas sketches the Platonic ideal of a tomato onto heavy draft paper and Latimer letters “And now, the new…” on a sheet of copy.
Murder might not be easy, but here Richard Hull successfully bundles the details of 1930s office life – both the creative advertising and the destructive scheming aspects – into one highly appealing package.
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