British author James Corbett, I have learned, was a moderately popular crime fiction and thriller writer in his time, and his books were a staple of subscription library lists in the 1930s and '40s. It also appears that his début title, 1929's breathless and remarkable The Merrivale Mystery, is a fair example of the quality of work he would produce over the next two decades. And that quality is striking indeed, a mix of overheated prose, cardboard characters, and an ineptitude of plotting that will leave the discerning reader delighted, bemused, or in agony. Or possibly a combination of the three.
Full disclosure: I knew what I was getting into with this author. Corbett's reputation and infamy precede him, as Bill Pronzini singles out The Merrivale Mystery as an "alternative" crime classic in his 1987 study of bad genre writing, Son of Gun in Cheek. Even better, the late Bill Deeck has given the world The Complete Deeck on Corbett (2003), where he amusingly analyzes a number of Corbett's titles. The site Mystery*file has a couple wry reviews from Deeck on this singular author, including a very funny look at a very peculiar supernatural thriller called The Vampire of the Skies.
As I have always had an affinity for the earnest but incompetent genre story, likely in part from an adolescence spent absorbing the wonderfully terrible movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I wanted to try James Corbett. I was not disappointed, which is to say that I was thoroughly expecting disappointment in the conventional sense. But what makes this author's work so notably bad? I can't state it any more succinctly and accurately as Mr. Deeck does here, so I offer this quote:
As I have always had an affinity for the earnest but incompetent genre story, likely in part from an adolescence spent absorbing the wonderfully terrible movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I wanted to try James Corbett. I was not disappointed, which is to say that I was thoroughly expecting disappointment in the conventional sense. But what makes this author's work so notably bad? I can't state it any more succinctly and accurately as Mr. Deeck does here, so I offer this quote:
There are certain types of readers to whom Corbett will not appeal. He should be avoided by those who like fine writing; by those who appreciate good description; by those who enjoy characterization and who think it helpful to be able to tell the characters apart; by those who do not appreciate non sequiturs or the almost-right word; by those who think real clues are essential in a mystery; by those who want detection and fair play; and by those who expect a writer to remember what he has written just a page before.
Deeck covers all the bases when it comes to Corbett's shortcomings, and in The Merrivale Mystery these failures are on abundant display. If it were merely lackluster prose or poor plotting, the work could be dismissed and forgotten about. But it takes a special kind of zeal for an aspiring artiste to deliver something that isn't just poor but spectacularly, gloriously unsuccessful; think Ed Wood or the woman who tried to restore a faded Renaissance painting by giving its saint a smiley face. With Corbett, one gets the impression that he's the perfect inexperienced amateur, someone who recognizes the general elements of mystery fiction that create excitement – sensational murders, a brilliant detective, belligerent suspects – but hasn't really thought about how it's all going to work. Accusing Corbett of a lack of talent is too easy; when it comes to mangling plot, characterization, and the English language, he is positively inspired.
Here we have brilliant detective Victor Serge, brought in to investigate the murder of Sir Philip Merrivale of Merrivale Hall. The reader is reminded repeatedly that Serge is "famous", "brilliant", and "an agent of Justice", and perhaps we should be reminded of this, since the great man doesn't really do anything to prove his reputation. Certainly he will solve the mystery (after two more murders occur in exactly the same fashion, with a family member alone in the library killed by a revolver shot to the head through an open terrace door), but his methods of deduction are head-scratchingly incomplete. As Bill Deeck writes, it's tempting to just quote the entire Corbett book and be done with it, but here is one passage that shows the unintentionally comical prose which courses through the entire novel. The author has provided his detective with a sort-of Watson, a credulous and rather ineffective novelist (!) named Ralph Moreton:
Here we have brilliant detective Victor Serge, brought in to investigate the murder of Sir Philip Merrivale of Merrivale Hall. The reader is reminded repeatedly that Serge is "famous", "brilliant", and "an agent of Justice", and perhaps we should be reminded of this, since the great man doesn't really do anything to prove his reputation. Certainly he will solve the mystery (after two more murders occur in exactly the same fashion, with a family member alone in the library killed by a revolver shot to the head through an open terrace door), but his methods of deduction are head-scratchingly incomplete. As Bill Deeck writes, it's tempting to just quote the entire Corbett book and be done with it, but here is one passage that shows the unintentionally comical prose which courses through the entire novel. The author has provided his detective with a sort-of Watson, a credulous and rather ineffective novelist (!) named Ralph Moreton:
Moreton, fascinated by the scene, made no effort to speak, but his brain surged with a thousand ideas. He still watched every movement, saw Serge's wonderful instruments pass over the body, the magnetic lens and gleaming microscope, the powerful hand-torch and measuring tape. During the inspection, Moreton knew he was watching a genius. He saw it in the systematic method of the examination, in every movement of those limbs, in every flash from Serge's eye.
Corbett has a penchant for exclamation points, both in dialogue and in prose, and I found myself wondering how characters might deliver a punctuated statement that otherwise would have warranted a humble period. Apparently, he is also a writer not to turn down a question mark; here we find this interrogative run in a chapter titled, "Bancroft Blunders!" [sic]
"The words were pregnant with meaning, and Serge noted them carefully. What was the pact between these two? Why did they comprehend each other so thoroughly? Were they in league? Was Sybil the helpless agent of this evil genius? Was this helpless, spine-stricken invalid a devil incarnate? Were all these horrible things emanating from his brain?"
Vampire of the Skies (1932) The characters are certainly poorly drawn and alternately melodramatic and wooden, but the sparkling jewel of ineptness is surely the plotting and narrative structure that the enthusiastic Corbett offers up. Apparently, amateur detective Serge has complete run of the murder scene, and the police let him take over the library so he can literally question the suspects while standing over Sir Philip's uncovered body. (By the way, based on the timeline of when the body was found, the dead man still had not been removed after 12 hours of police investigation…) I was struck early on by the fact that three successive chapters have exactly the same arc: a suspect arrives, doesn't really answer Serge's questions, doesn't acknowledge the dead body on the floor, warns that Serge will never discover the baffling mystery of Merrivale Hall, and then accuses another family member of the crime. Serge starts the next chapter with this new suspect, and the cycle repeats itself.
SPOILER, IF YOU CARE: There's later-chapter talk of a ".449 bullet" that never amounts to anything, and when a gun is found there's no interest in fingerprints: "He held it in one hand." Finally, there's the slap-in-the-face reveal of the murderer, who turns out to be a character who has not been introduced before! The amazing thing about this bit of decidedly unfair play is that the details could have easily been set up and clued so the killer's identity wouldn't feel like a completely arbitrary surprise, although maybe that was what Corbett wanted to do.
(End of Spoiler.) So, if you pick up a James Corbett mystery, this is what you're in for. Me? I find it amusing, in moderation. And you have to admire a neophyte mystery writer who lets his detective dismiss three carousing half-brothers as suspects (more through caprice than any deductive logic) by stating, "They are eliminated from the mystery zone."
I must quote the genius Victor Serge one more time as he evokes the brooding mood of Merrivale Hall as only he (and his creator James Corbett) can do:
(End of Spoiler.) So, if you pick up a James Corbett mystery, this is what you're in for. Me? I find it amusing, in moderation. And you have to admire a neophyte mystery writer who lets his detective dismiss three carousing half-brothers as suspects (more through caprice than any deductive logic) by stating, "They are eliminated from the mystery zone."
I must quote the genius Victor Serge one more time as he evokes the brooding mood of Merrivale Hall as only he (and his creator James Corbett) can do:
"I advanced another step, but it led to a wilderness of suspicion, intrigue, and hate. It is a horrible undergrowth of hate, Bancroft, and the hate emanates from the walls itself!"
I laughed three times while typing those two sentences, and that's pretty darn impressive. Here's the coda: As far as I know, after The Merrivale Mystery, detective Victor Serge never appeared in print again. James Corbett would go on to publish 42 more novels.
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