Andrew Soutar's 'The Devil's Triangle' 1931

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

It's less than a month since I read my last Andrew Soutar novel (see my Blog 16th January), which I found unusual but nevertheless quite enjoyed. The Devil's Triangle is again written from a slightly different angle and the strong narrative drive kept me reading so that I finished it in one day (unlike the last book). Sir Maxwell Deane, K.C., M.P., - aged forty, was handsome, alert, gifted with eloquence, shrewdness, and tremendous ambition - is sent out to Moscow to confer with representatives of the Soviet on matters affecting trade and certain concessions.  As he leaves the train, a young lady breaks away from a group of delegates and rushes towards him. With eyes that penetrated and, in penetrating, inspired!... the woman throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, first on the cheek and then the lips. She whispers quickly in his ear: "For God's sake, say I'm your wife!"  Being alert, he goes along with it. It helps that he knows her slightly - she is Anita Lavering, in her early twenties, and the daughter of Sir Douglas Lavering of Dunmore Square, an acquaintance of Maxwell's. They had briefly met once at a party at the Laverings.

The Soviets, seemingly satisfied, deposit the 'husband and wife' at an unpretentious hotel, prior to the conference Maxwell is to attend. Anita explains that she has been in Russia for six months and has been helping certain people get out of the country. She is in danger, hence her subterfuge. The ruse succeeds, as the two are able to get back, via Riga, Archangel and Murmansk, to London. However, the Soviets are so delighted with the story Anita spins them of a secret marriage in Paris, that they publish it in their newspapers. Inevitably, it is picked up by the London Press - to the great surprise of Anita's parents and everyone else. Back in London, Maxwell, who by now has fallen for Anita, suggests they actually get married to support the sham. She turns him down. Why? "I am already married." Moreover, she and her real husband parted less than ten minutes after they left a Paris registry office. She has not seen him since.

Anita desperately argues there must be some means of escape from the awful predicament in which we find ourselves. Alas, fate was not disposed to allow of any such escape. In fact, worse is to come. Maxwell's butler announces there is a very cultured gentleman to see him. A perfect stranger is ushered in - he was tall, alert, perfectly groomed - and introduces himself: Charles Pringle. My address until quite recently was Broadmoor Asylum. And he says his wife is...Anita Lavering! The reader is only on page 29, but they are now in for a further exciting 233 pages.  Pringle explains that he left Anita in Paris as he had to travel to South Africa and then South America, where he had big business interests. Moreover, after returning to England, he had been prosecuted by none other than Maxwell for murder. Maxwell  had argued for the death  penalty, but Pringle had been sent to Broadmoor as insane. Now he had escaped and where better to hide, whilst settling his financial affairs and escaping to South America. than at the home of the counsel who had prosecuted him! Anita has to be told: "My God!" said Maxwell, "If you're not insane, you're the most callous devil that ever lived."

The blow had come for Anita and Maxwell. Either, to Society, they were living in sin or she was a bigamist. As the pages are turned, the reader experiences the couple's desperate attempts to escape from this predicament. Kill Pringle? He says he has left a letter to be produced if he dies, stating his (legal) marriage in Paris. The author is good at gradually unravelling the psychology of Pringle. Behind the smooth exterior is a troubled mind, calculating but insecure. He can tease Anita, browbeat Maxwell, fool the older Laverings, but quiver when a warder from Broadmoor half-recognises him. To outsiders he calls himself Capristi - including Detective Slante of the Yard, who is searching for the escaped Pringle. He meets Pringle/Capristi at Maxwell's - does he recognise him? We shall find out towards the end of the tale.

To give any more details away would be a major 'spoiler alert'. Good does win out in the end, but not before another woman (Mariette Dubique) whom Pringle met in Paris is killed by him in her flat. I found that unnecessary for the plot, but I suppose it meant Pringle had to sever this mortal coil too. Soutar kept the narrative flowing, engaged the reader successfully with the main characters, who were all believable, and produced a compelling tale. As the Daily Sketch two-word quotation pithily says on the front cover: "Fine Thriller."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I read, a couple of days ago, an article by Clarissa Heard, entitled The Problem with 'diversifying' English literature. I quote - 

Lit in Colour, a campaign launched by Penguin and the Runnymede Trust to diversify English literature, has recently released its five-year progress report. 'Diversity' for this campaign doesn't mean diversity of thought, style, genre, poetic form or historical period, however. It refers to promoting writers on the basis of their BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) credentials while insisting that English Literature - cumulatively one of the most staggering achievements in Western civilisation - is too white for the modern classroom.

Simply, Bah! Thank goodness, one still can choose what one reads. For me (as shown by my Blogs) it means mainly pre-1960s novels (there are a few exceptions - Scott Mariani, Nicola Upson, C.J. Sansom) and certainly not BAME material. The rest of Clarissa Heard's article is too depressing to copy out. What is positive about the 21st century - apart from our grandchildren?

Grierson Dickson's 'Gun Business' 1935

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

This is only the second Grierson Dickson novel I have read, the first being Soho Racket (see my Blog of 23rd July 2025). I found the latter rather claustrophobic (sticking very much to the area of its title), but it was tightly controlled and there was a certain narrative drive to it. Gun Business I am not so sure about.  It starts well - It was only a few hours before she was murdered that Marie Morgeuil bought the scarlet silk pyjamas in which she died - but it never really lives up to that early promise. We learn very little about her in the next two pages of the Prologue; apart from a predilection for red - very red pyjamas because I am a brunette, we know she is South American, likes expensive Brazilian coffee and (much later in the story) works as a spy for her government - that of San Vallo.

The reader is then quickly introduced to the characters who will figure throughout the book. Victor Lyne, an armaments salesman. He had type of face which appeals more to women than to men - pale, with blue veins showing at the temples, blue eyes half-hidden by dropping lids, small black moustache above sensual lips. It was the sort of face which thrilled thousands of young girls nightly at the cinemas, which had in it something of the weakling, a touch of effeminacy and a trace of the beast. It still appealed to his wife, Lydia, even though their marriage had been a business deal. Victor had invested some of the profits of Flecker-Bastin, the firm of armament dealers he virtually controlled, in providing for Lydia. In return, he had acquired a share of the goodwill of her influential relations. What was the problem? Lydia thought Marie was one of his 'young girls'  

Lyne has a secretary, Janet Gale, who works for him at his office in New Oxford Street. She is presently compiling the formidable list of instruments of death which would be shortly on their way to the unhappy republic of San Vallo. The armaments would go not to the latter's government, but to rebels. This was being engineered by a treacherous member of the government, General Floriano Carrenza. Carrenza turns up at the office; Janet is not keen on him, partly because of his hands - brown and claw-like, and disfigured on the back by black hair. Not a typical white man, then. To add to the mix is the fact that a fat American, Berriman Lee, is working on behalf of his armaments company, Diamond Steelworks of Ohio, to steal the armament contract from Lyne. Strangely, Lee is boarding at the very place Janet has her 'digs'. When one adds the German master crook, Eitel  - cropped-haired, blond and solemn - who we have already met in the author's Soho Racket; an Italian-American Angelo Miglia; and a little cockney crook Pipey Hanna; we have the full cast of characters, who may or not be involved in Marie's murder.

We meet the famous Superintendent "Cissie" Marlow at his office in New Scotland Yard at the start of Chapter III. He is with his faithful side-kick, Sergeant Brodie, a heavily built, solemn-looking man and a persistent hypochondriac. One of the aspects of the novel that did not catch on for me was the banter that went on between these two. It appeared a trifle forced and eventually grated. They are sent to investigate Marie Morgeuil's death. Victor Lyne is soon under their forensic microscope; Lydia gets drawn in. Eitel, Angelo and Pipey are clearly working for someone in relation to the armaments deal; Carrenza and Lyne act increasingly suspiciously. One final character, Janet's potential boyfriend, Bryan Daly (who lives at the same lodgings in Mansfield Road) becomes involved. By this time, I thought that the author had lost the narrative thread; seemingly not sure which part of the story to concentrate on. The denouement bordered on the silly. It involved a light aeroplane flying low over London, tracking a carrier pigeon to a deserted house near Ham Common, where a kidnapped boy was held.

Perhaps the problem was that I kept putting the book down - Six Nations Rugby called as well as my regular Saturday morning breakfast group (we model ourselves after The Last of the Summer Wine but call ourselves The First of the Winter Plonk). However, I found it rather 'bitty' anyway. None of the  characters really caught on with me; perhaps Janet and Brian were the most sympathetic. There was too much of a Ruritanian aspect to San Vallo; Eitel got away yet again, which was a pity as he is an uninspiring character to read about. If Soho Racket was a B+, then I am afraid this novel was a B-.

Edgar Wallace's 'The Lady of Ascot' 1930

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

The Lady of Ascot was a loose novelisation of Edgar Wallace's play M'Lady, which ran for a mere twenty-three performances in 1921 at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. Apparently, it was panned by theatre critics! Well, I liked the novel - what one might call a rattling good yarn.

John Morlay, is a private 'detective' dealing only with the commercial credit of people. He is the remaining grandson of one of the Morlay Brothers, a reputable firm in London confining themselves to that lucrative and usually colourless branch of criminal detection. The reader first meets him peering through the trim box-hedge of Little Lodge, a pseudo-Queen Anne manor at Ascot, so small that it might have been built by some plutocrat to give his young and pampered daughter the joys of a practicable doll's house. Morlay meets up with a Scotland Yard friend, sub-inspector Pickles, who informs him the new occupant of the manor will be Countess Marie Fioli - "she's a schoolgirl - leavin' in the middle of term, which is bad. She's comin' up next week - her guardian or something has bought the house". Back in his London office, Morlay receives a visit from an acquaintance, Julian Lester, who was a little too tailor-made, his manners a trifle too precious...Morlay hated his jewelled sleeve-links and his pearl tiepin...Julian came in, looking as though he had stepped out of the proverbial bandbox. Now for one of those coincidences which keep most detective/thriller tales going. Lester has his eyes fixed on the eighteen-year-old Countess Fioli - he thinks there is money to be had from a matrimonial link up. He explains the importance of a Mrs Carawood - nineteen years ago Mrs Carawood was a nursemaid in the employ of the Countess Fioli, a widow who had a house at Bournmouth, and who was, I know, a member of a very noble family. The Countess died, leaving no will but a baby, whom she asked Mrs. Carawood to care for. Mrs Carawood became a wealthy woman - through opening eventually a chain of shops, which were bringing in, so Lester surmises, a considerable sum of money. Marie Fioli is now attending the prestigious, and expensive, Cheltenham Ladies' College. Good for Mrs C. But Lester thinks she has used the dead Countess' money for her own ends. He will investigate!

Morlay's interest is aroused; he visits Mrs Carawood's main store in Penton Street, Pimlico. He talks to the shop assistant - a tall, lank youth wearing a green-baize apron. His red hair was long and untidy, and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles gave him an appearance of comic ferocity. Mrs C. is not there, but has gone to Cheltenham to see Marie. Morlay then did a thing which was more inexplicable to himself. He takes a train to Cheltenham! From then on it is a, surprisingly sentimental, roller coaster. Morlay meets up with Mrs C. - in the region of fifty, swarthy of face and yet not unpleasant to look upon. There was something of the gipsy in the romantic Mrs Carawood; then Marie - there were harmony and grace in her movements...the gaucherie of childhood had come to be a rhythm; the round, firm cheeks had delicate shadows. To Morlay, she is simply beautiful! Mrs C is agitated when she hears Morlay is a 'detective' and, determined to get him onside, visits him in his office and tries to employ him to  watch Marie's interests. Although, refusing payment, Morlay agrees to act in an honorary capacity.

Morlay and Marie get to know each other; Lester tries to find out more about Mrs. C - there is clearly a mystery about her relationship with 'the  Countess'. A further mystery occurs when a down-and-out man called Mr Hoad (he was a man whom Morlay met at the start of the tale at the Little Lodge - another coincidence) gives a message marked Urjent to Marie for Mrs C.  Clearly, something in Mrs C's past needs sorting. A Father Benito, of the Franciscan Church in Mayfair, goes to see Morlay and made a statement which brought John Morlay to his feet, wide-eyed. There are another hundred pages to go, but the reader begins to see a glimmer of light - it was here I began to guess the probable outcome. In other words, who Mrs Carawood really was; who the ex-Dartmoor lag Hoad was; and, in particular, who exactly was the young Countess of Fioli. Wallace holds our attention to the end, skilfully linking up Lester with the above threesome, as well as unveiling Lester's own proclivities. More must not be given away, except to admit that Marie and Morlay are going to live happily ever after. I repeat - I enjoyed the novel.

Eden Phillpotts' 'Bred in the Bone' 1933

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

Unlike the last few Crime-Book Society books I have read, this felt like a 'proper' novel, as opposed to a well-knit story. As much a psychological study as a thriller or detective yarn, it needs the reader to concentrate far more. The first five chapters have as their titles the names of the main participants. The first deals with Peter Bryden - the face of Peter Bryden presented a clash of qualities, so that any student of character, observing obvious traits tending to exclude each other, was concerned with the question of what sap and kernel remained, the process of elimination ended. He was handsome, with the old-fashioned, large-moulded distinction of an earlier age than our own - the solid and massive dignity that stares from the faces of early Georgian portraits...purpose marked Bryden's square features, and the countenance as a whole spoke of a self-controlled and continent but very strong-willed man. He now runs North Wood farm on the edge of Dartmoor. His father has been dead ten years and his elder brother, Lawrence, after making a poor show of running the steading, has handed over everything and left for Canada. More than that, Peter has also 'inherited' Lawrence's girl, Avis Ullathorne (sounds like a Hardy or Trollope surname!). Peter had triumphed, and the love of the woman was responsible for all that he had done since he first met her.

Then had come the woman, upset all his values and challenged his quality. She had probed unsuspected depths and revealed possibilities that Peter himself never guessed at..."'Till I met you, Avis, I just calculated the chances and didn't feel no very tremendous pull to living; and I certainly never guessed that love of a woman could turn the scales so sharp."...a contract existed between Avis and Peter Bryden: that they should never speak of incidents concerned with the past, either to other people or themselves. It soon becomes clear why this is so.

Into this seemingly idyllic position comes the sound of a motor-car... There appeared a man of forty years old, who looked younger He was neat and trim, rather under-sized and thin, but firmly knit. He is looking for Lawrence Bryden and his name is Midwinter. Greatly surprised to hear the latter has sailed for Canada, he is slightly rebuffed when he asks for more details; but Peter suggests he goes on to the nearby little hamlet of Little Silver and talk to a friend of the Brydens, a publican John White who runs the Woolpack Inn. So, off Midwinter goes and learns far more detail about Noah Bryden, the father, and his two very different sons. "Neither boy was quite the man their father was, yet both had character...but, though a likeable enough chap, Lawrence always had a screw loose on the matter of farming." Silly mistakes were made and Peter left in despair. He only returned when Lawrence sent a frantic message that, if he didn't come home, all was lost. When he returned, it was to find Avis and her widowed mother ensconced in a cottage on the farm land. "And then a fearful thing fell out, for Peter found himself struck to the heart with Avis Ullathorne". After initially deciding he would help Peter go to Canada, Lawrence changes his mind and decides to emigrate himself. So, that's the official story Midwinter hears down at the pub.

Then all hell breaks loose. Billy Archer, who resembled a large and shabby, but acute and active rat, had been about to steal watercress on the other side of the Moor to sell in Plymouth. From the midst of the growing stuff an unexpected object confronted him. It was a solitary human hand...a strong male hand, lacerated from some cause, but still intact. I immediately guessed it would be Lawrence on the end of the hand. And so it proved to be. The local lord, then the police (Inspector Budlake etc.) sprang into action. And so did Vincent Midwinter. And that is why he has visited Peter and Avis - telling them of Lawrence's demise only after listening to their tale of his departure for Canada -  and set up base at the Woolpack. It soon becomes obvious that Midwinter increasingly suspects the two of them. At one stage, I thought it was beginning to read like a typical Lieutenant Columbo - "Just one more thing..." - as Midwinter knew they had done the murder and they knew he knew etc. However, although he gets close, he can't actually pin anything on them and Chapter XIV is headed Exit Midwinter. The detective returns to London, admitting failure.

However, the 'meat' of a compelling story is just about to begin. Not for nothing is the next chapter entitled The Rift. Over the next ninety-odd pages the two very different characters of Peter and Avis ensure an unravelling of their seeming success. The rational, atheistic wife is simply unable to stem her husband's growing unease and feelings of guilt. Page after page deals with the disintegration of the man's character, even his soul. He starts to attend church with her mother and the awfulness of what he has done (he had, with Avis, poisoned his brother) sinks in, deeper and deeper. Avis, on a very different character and mental plane, realises she cannot stop this. Chapter XXI Death of Peter, however, shows how he has retained enough sense to ensure his end looks like a horrific accident. Avis has long realised his death would be best for both of them; even for their yet-to-be-born child. The final chapter, The Fisherman, sees Midwinter return (I hadn't seen that coming) to fish and meet up with Avis, who confesses the whole story. She leaves her fate in his hands. Two months after the day on which Vincent Midwinter left Avis Bryden, a more vital problem than she challenged him, and there opened the Great War. He fell in France before the year was ended.

Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)

Edgar Wallace's 'The Coat of Arms' 1931

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

Good old Edgar. After two Crime-Book Society novels without one, at last a murder - admittedly, not until page 166 (of 256); but it was immensely satisfying, although 'flagged up' from quite early on. The book takes its title from the hostelry situated in the village of Sketchley. The pub is run by Mr. John Lorney, newly come to Sketchley [who] received and returned the antagonism proper to a foreigner...he was a large man, broad-shouldered, bald, stern of face, harsh-voiced, a driver of men. He had no enthusiasm, little sense of public interest. One to watch, then. Nearby, is Arranways Hall, where Lord Eddie Arranway, middle-aged, irascible, is living with his newly-wed second wife, Marie. His first marriage had ended in a messy divorce in India, when his good-looking A.D.C. was found in his pyjamas in the Residency garden with a bullet through his shoulder; the first Lady Arranways had fled in her night things to the house of his military secretary. Unfortunately, the second marriage is not going well, either. On their honeymoon in Egypt, the Arranways meet a very agreeable young man, Mr. Keith Keller, the son of a very rich Australian. He comes with them to England. In Berlin, on their way home, Marie loses a diamond bracelet, one of her wedding gifts. Fact to squirrel away for later. Lord Arranway is not happy, but Keller consoles her. For a while all is well. Keller ingratiates himself with his lordship, whilst appearing to take little notice of the latter's wife. Aha, you think; and you would be right. It's an action replay of his lordship's first marriage.

Meanwhile, young Anna Jeans descends on The Coat of Arms. She is the niece of a friend of John Lorney's and had been to stay last year. An intelligent girl, she is on vacation from studying at a pension in Switzerland. Staying with the Arranways is Richard Mayford, the brother of Marie. Anna played tennis most proficiently; she played golf; she rode; she played the piano rather well. Richard is smitten. He spends rather a lot of time at the pub.  Then Arranway Hall burns down and they all have to move temporarily to The Coat of Arms. It is now that the real mischief takes place. Not only is Keller clearly having an affair with Marie Arranway, but he is also setting his eye and hands on the younger Anna. The man is an absolute bounder. Moreover, is he really who he says he is? Hence the involvement of sometime American police captain, Carl Rennett, and Chief Inspector T.B. Collett, officially liaison officer between Scotland Yard and foreign police forces. Clearly, something, or someone, has attracted their attention and presence.

Wallace keeps tight control of all these characters, bringing them into the foreground when necessary and keeping the reader guessing. What is clear by the aforementioned page 166, is that several of the characters could have killed Keller - Arranway and his wife; Anna Jeans or Richard Mayford; the surly, ex-con Charles Green, who John Lorney had employed as general factotum at the pub; and Lorney himself. I guessed which of these was the murderer well before the end but, no matter, it was a compelling yarn. And, as with the burglars who got away with it in Wolf-Net, so did the murderer this time, thanks to Rennett and Collett. The author also had good, if mildly malicious, fun poking at the local P.C. Plod - Superintendent Blagdon, who managed to chase every wild goose available. I also liked the unveiling of Anna Jeans' antecedent; and the uncovering of the various aliases of Keller, including Boy Barton.

Winifred Graham's 'Wolf-Net' 1931

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

Good. Back to a more pleasurable experience with a Crime-Book Society 'thriller'. The tale was quite what I would call a 'gentle' one. No murders or awful 'baddies', just a couple of thieves planning an audacious robbery and then getting away with it. Louisa Woolfe is a cat burglar, who had already featured in two previous novels of Winifred Graham - A Wolf of the Evenings and The Last Laugh. I haven't read either, so I come to Miss Woolfe afresh. She has recently returned from Russia (her deceased mother was Russian) and her cousin, Augustus Woolfe, receiver of stolen goods, retired yet unrepentant rogue of fortune, already has a potential 'job' lined up for her. It means travelling from Norfolk, via London, to Home Park House, near Hampton Court, where an old client/friend - the great art critic, perhaps the greatest in the world - Maurice Twyford lives. On their way there, 'Gus' fills Lou in about Maurice - he is the brain, but not always the limb, of big sensations. He knows who to employ and he seldom backs a losing horse. So far, it has been his boast that he never trusts a woman. Women, he said, may have iron nerves, but sometimes iron is apt to melt, if the furnace is too hot.

Undoubtedly a challenge for Miss Woolfe! Her first impression of this man, with the sharply pointed thin-cheeked face, was one of surprise, for that face had a sort of glacial purity about it remarkably deceptive. She saw at once that under his short moustache the mouth was resolute, while the apparently gentle eyes looked to be capable of lightning-flashes. You are ahead of me - of course, they fall for each other. What's the big plan? No less to steal a painting from Hampton Court Palace. It is Margaret by Rubens: Lou studied the head so perfectly poised upon its young shoulders - every point appealed. She noted the subtle gradations of colour, the pure arch of the eyebrows, not put in with the usual sweep of a brush, but with separate cross touches in their line of growth. And Maurice desperately wants it; it is to be concealed behind a panel in his bedroom. Can Lou purloin it for him? Of course she can. The subsequent descriptions of her hiding behind the hangings of Queen Charlotte's bed; of her escape across the park in a fog; of its concealment; of Maurice's ecstasy; and, then, his realisation that the longed-for painting was no match for his growing adoration of Lou herself. The author skilfully charts the changes, including Lou's own growing realisation that she would like to forsake her life of crime for a settled domestic bliss. No more Louisa Woolfe stories, then.

Early on in the tale, Maurice catches a night-time burglar (ironic!) in his house. Lou is there too and thought she had never seen anything so thin  or pitiful - bones protruded from the emaciated cheeks. Not only do the two let Horace Brown go, but he departs with a basket full of cold food and a bottle of wine. Noblesse oblige? Certainly, but the upshot is a vital part of the denouement two hundred pages later.

The fly in the ointment is Violet Tracey, Maurice Twyford's ward; her face was oval and silky-skinned, a type to melt the heart of any man to sudden tenderness, if only the eyes had not been so uncompromisingly hard. To Violet, Maurice is "sort of God. Sometimes, when he's very nice, I call him God." Oh dear, not only is she in love with her guardian but she discovers the two thieves and where the painting has been hidden. Her declaration of love for her guardian is firmly rebuffed and off she goes to drown herself in the nearby Thames. Although Lou plunges in and rescues her, Violet then experiences a mini breakdown. The author cleverly uses this to ensure Maurice and Lou are not reported to the police and Violet ends up realising Maurice is not for her. All live happily ever after - apart from tubby Augustus, who is on an enforced teetotal diet back home in Norfolk.

I thought the narrative pace was sustained throughout; the characters were alive and realistic; and the scenes in Hampton Court Palace were well done.  

Winifred Graham (1873-1950)

Winifred Graham is another in the Crime-Book Society list who was a prolific author -  of some eighty-eight books. She began in the 1890s, with a short story Through the Multitude of Business (1894) in the Belgravia magazine. Her first book-length novel, On the Down Grade, was published in 1896. Thrillers and romantic novels followed, as well as a three-volume autobiography and a critical popular history of Mormonism. Apparently, recurring themes included the perils of romantic love entangled with class hierarchies and infidelity, often resolving in tragic loss or redemption. In addition, to her criticisms of Mormonism, she published works critical of Zionism, Christian Science, Roman Catholicism  and the Women's Suffrage Movement. She was some stuff!

Talbot Mundy's 'C.I.D.' 1932

Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?

I must admit this is the first Crime-Book Society paperback I have really struggled to finish. Set in India, in the last decades of the British Raj, it was a lumbering (rather like the elephants involved) tale. I felt no sympathy, let alone empathy, with any of the characters - there was no hero and no out-and-out villain. Apparently, the author produced a series of short stories and novels about the Criminal Investigation Division of India, which featured Chullunder Ghose in many of them as their protagonist. Certainly not as a hero - this babu (often a highly placed government officer, usually addressed as 'Sir'), when we first meet him, is a dark-skinned man in a blue European suit, a raincoat, and a turban, who introduced himself to Dr. Stanley Copeland, an American specialist from the neck up - eye, throat, nose, and ear -  as a reprehensible and graceless babu. Ghose is also obese. 

Copeland wants to get into the state of Kutchdullub, to shoot a tiger. The state is ruled by a Rajah, who spends most of his time drinking and wenching. The Rajah has a cousin, a Prince, who wishes to overthrow him. Linked up with this is a ruined temple, where a group of Kali's priests appear under the thumb of a mad woman Soonya, who has adopted the terrible creed of Kali, which served death, not life; and at least one tiger who has slain six women, four men, five children, six-and-fifty goats and nineteen head of cattle.  The Raja, desperately short of cash, employs a servant, Syed-Suraj, a shifty, self-seeking man, to get a money-lender Ram Dass to provide more wherewithal. Others in the story include Major Eustace Smith, the representative of the British Ray, who is suffering from painful neck boils and desperate to leave India for a little cottage in Madeira; Hawkes, a retired infantry sergeant eking out his pension by staying in India and getting employment in a Native State.   If it all sounds confusing, then it is because that's what it is! The story plods along and I increasingly lost the will to follow it. I have been to India and felt no affinity for the countryside, the weather or the buildings. Our tiger foray produced no animals of any sort. I don't usually give away endings but, spoiler alert,  Syed-Suraj is killed by the Rajah who, in turn dies in the tiger pit - as do Soonya, the priests and the tigers. The cousin succeeds to the throne.  When the babu says in the final paragraph of the novel - "Oh, my karma! let us drink annihilation to the C.I.D., and politics, and tigers, and to every other dam' thing!" - I couldn't concur more. I do hope the next Crime-Book Society novel returns to their usual level - this one had no detection or thriller aspects at all.

Talbot Mundy (1879-1940)

Far more interesting was reading about Talbot Mundy. Born William Lancaster Gribbon in Hammersmith, London, and educated at Rugby School, he left with no qualifications and moved to British India, to work as an administrator and then as a journalist. After a sojourn in East Africa, where he became an ivory poacher and then a town clerk!, he moved to New York City in 1909. He began selling non-fiction articles and short stories to pulp magazines, such as Argosy and Adventure. (I have several of these pulp magazines, but none with his material). He became a Christian Scientist and embraced Theosophy. He was married five times, was a heavy cigarette smoker throughout his life, suffered from diabetes, eventually dying of complications.

 One of his biographers described Mundy as a strange, enigmatic personality, noting that in his early life he was known for being a wastrel, confidence-trickster, barefaced liar and a womanizer. Well, at least that was more interesting than this novel. He had strong political views, being contemptuous of the British establishment and opposing imperialism. He supported the move for Indian independence. This can be deduced from this novel. Chullunder Ghose, commenting on the boil on the back of Eustace Smith's neck, describes it as an officially dignified and economically useless, ethically hypocritical anachronism's neck. He also chides Copeland with being afraid of moss-back majors with a mid-Victorian morality that makes them fit this epoch as a pig fits an automobile. Although Mundy's work was often compared with that of Rudyard Kipling and Rider Haggard, he disliked the comparison. Finally, Munday was perhaps best known for his King of the Kyber Rifles. It was published in 1916, the same year as John Buchan's Greenmantle, which has a similar theme. It was adapted for a film in 1929, starring Victor McLaglen and Myrna Loy; a second version came out in 1953, starring Tyrone Power, Michael Rennie and Terry Moore. It had little in common with Mundy's novel.