Jarrolds' 'Jackdaw' Crime Series

 

Jarrolds may not be a well known name in publishing, but its history stretches back for nearly two centuries. It notably published the first edition of Black Beauty in 1877. By the end of the 1930s, it was part of the Hutchinson Group, which also included John Long, Rich & Cowan, Skeffington and Hurst & Blackett. Penguin had launched its paperbacks in 1935, and Jarrold was one of the publishers to join the rush to get into the paperback market. Like several other companies, they chose another bird's name for their series, and Jackdaw was nicely alliterative. They copied the Penguin model - same size and price (6d.), same standard design cover with a variety of bold colours; the dust wrappers replicated the inside covers. I will probably Blog on the general Jackdaw works another time; the first eight appeared in October 1936; a further eight followed in the first three months of 1937, and four more in June 1937. Only two more appeared, in June 1938. Both were crime titles and, when the series relaunched in 1939, they did so under the title 'Jackdaw' Crime Series. Eight came out that year and another eight by the end of 1940. The books lost their dust wrappers as wartime restrictions and paper rationing occurred. The numbering ended at sixteen, although a few more unnumbered ones appeared, costing 9d.

I have slowly collected both series - they are relatively rare and, occasionally, rather pricey - and, to date I have 16 of the 22 general series (12 with their wrappers); and 12 of the 16 numbered in the crime series (only four in wrappers). They have sat on my shelves for some while, but a ten day holiday in Corfu persuaded me to take eight of the twelve crime series with me. The time was not wasted, as I found them all interesting, even if the detective/murder genre is not one I usually engage with.

Walter Sydney Masterton (1876-1946) was an English author of mystery, horror, fantasy and science fiction. He was educated at Tonbridge School, Weymouth College and Christ's College, Cambridge. He served as a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion Welsh Regiment in the 2nd Boer War and was made Captain in 1901. He also served in WWI as a Major with the Welsh Regiment. He died in Brighton in May 1946. His The Baddington Horror was the last of the numbered general Jarrold 'Jackdaws' to be published - in June 1938. The Wrong Verdict was the first of the new Crime series in the following year. Two further 'Jackdaws' followed: The Secret of the Downs (1940) and The Border Line (1940). I will be reading them next week in Rome. The Wrong Verdict is quite cleverly laid out, although we find out at the end that it was the 'butler' (in this instance, the valet) that done it. The story included an English sailor masquerading as a Chinese magician, Lian Foo who is set on revenge against the son of a judge who wrongly convicted him of a previous murder. There is romance, double dealing and painstaking detective work. Ideal for a sun lounger on a Greek island.

Herman Landon was a Swedish-born American writer, best remembered for his pulp fiction and novels about a reformed arch-criminal 'The Grey Phantom'. The Silver Chest is the rather far-fetched story of Sidney Caravel, an artist and man-about-town, who summons his enemies to his studio and tells them that he expects to die at the hands of one of them. In the room is a great silver chest, and later in the evening - after fleeing from a knock on his apartment door - he is found dead there. 'The Blue Devil', a diamond of ill-repute, plays a sinister part in the tale. Caravel saw himself as a latter-day Casanova, his hero and idol, and certainly expected death. It is Lieutenant Joseph Delmar's job to work out which of the sinister characters is the murderer - Gabrielle Norton (long and slim-bodied, with lines that suggested the grace of a sleeping young panther); Maida Manning (brown-haired, brown-eyed and barely nineteen); Bob Severn (his eyes were grey and straight-gazing, and his abundant brassy hair would never stay combed); 35 year-old Burton Marlow (long and lank, with pale, somnolent eyes and yellowish hair that looked as if it had been put out in the sun to bleach); or Fabian (he had an urbane manner and a genial smile, and his eyes gleamed pleasantly through his brightly polished lenses). Delmar listens to the rather shaky stories of all the above and, helped by his side-kick Babe Mallers (a round pumpkin of a face, a soft and sluggish body), he works out the importance of the skylight immediately above the chest, sorts through the lies, the red-herrings, the motives and the secrets of an island, to pounce on the murderer at the end. A little bit better than mere 'pulp'. Whether one goes as far as the Birmingham Post's comment that the story was an enthralling murder mystery by a master craftsman, is another matter.

Winifred Duke (1890-1962) was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman. She lived in Edinburgh and later in Colinton, Midlothian. She worked as a editor, notably for a series on English criminal law called Notable British Trials, which led her to write several books on famous trials. She also wrote books on Scottish history, including two on the 1745 Rebellion. The Murder of Mr. Mallabee is set in the rather seedy fictitious town of Salchester - in the main it consists of rows and rows of little brick-built houses, as drab as the lives spent in them, and rows of cheap shops. One of these is the greengrocer's establishment of J. Lockton, who was fifty-six, small, apologetic, down-trodden, inoffensive. In comparison, his wife was five years his senior, large-bosomed, highly-coloured, opinionated, aggressive. Any leisure Mr. Lockton possessed was spent round the corner at Mr. Mallabee's, who owned a flourishing chemist's shop. The latter is found dead one morning, at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading to his cellar. The last person to see him alive was, apparently, Lockton. The well-told story dwells not only on Inspector Lorrimer's attempts to track down the murderer, but on the changing relationship between the Locktons and the increasingly pernicious involvement of Bob Hudson, Mallabee's young assistant. Eerie fogs play their part, not only on the night of Mallabee's demise, but as a background to another seeming murder - of the kindly Nurse Rathbone. Arsenic also plays its part in the unveiling of the mystery. This time, I agreed with a contemporary newspaper - The Sunday Times - when it wrote Told with the utmost skill.

Numbers 4 and 6 were written by Herman Landon. I tracked down a long review online about The Back Seat Murder, first published in 1931. The reviewer has some pretty damning comments to make. Landon  was unquestionably a second-string mystery writer and The Back Seat Murder reads like a cheap dime novel. There are a number of shady and sinister personalities moving in and out of the story...they're all unconvincingly drawn, paper thin stock characters, who are annoyingly secretive about their motivations and act only in service of the plot... He does admit there's a good, undeveloped pulp-style short impossible crime story buried in the book... the impossible situations in the locked car were original and genuinely baffling, which were actually played to good effect, but Landon simply was not good enough to fully deliver on them. So you'll end up with a mixed, poorly written bag of tricks. Harsh, but much truth to it. Very different from the dust wrapper's flyleaf: Herman Landon has never written a more engrossing, a more puzzling, or a more diabolical mystery tale !

Haunting Fingers is better. Detective Joseph Delmar is back, trying to find out which of the eight suspects is the murderer of Duncan Forbes. After a convoluted process, it turns out to be the most likely one, who employs a ventriloquist's skill to be in two places at once. Delmar's large deputy, Babe Mallers, provides useful ideas (usually inadvertently) grinning in his usual fatuous way. I thought it was the best of the three of the Landon stories, with more realistic characters and a coherent plot.

As for George Goodchild (1888-and C.E. Bechhofer Roberts' The Jury Disagree, it more or less held my attention. The structure inevitably led to repetition and the best bit was the 'twist' at the end, which I hadn't seen coming.

 

The two men also co-authored No. 7 in the series - The Dear Old Gentleman - which was one of the best of the bunch. Goodchild also wrote under the pseudonyms of Alan Dare, Wallace Q. Reid and Jesse Templeton and he had over 200 works published during his lifetime and posthumously. He also directed several movies during the 1920s and 1930s. Needless to say, I had never heard of any of them! Bechhofer Roberts (1894-1949) was a British author, journalist and barrister. He produced works on travel, short stories, non-fiction, anthologies collections, films and novels. He was private secretary to Lord Birkenhead (1924-1930). He died in a car accident. This novel holds one's attention throughout. It opens with the trial of Margaret Sampson for the murder of Bessie McIntosh; the former was a previous and the latter the present live-in servant of Angus Aitkin (the "dear old gentleman" of the title). Many thought Aitkin himself should be in the dock for the murder. Sampson gets off, but is later murdered! The characters were all well-drawn and there is quite an ingenious twist at the end. It possibly takes first place amongst the eight novels I read.

Finally, there is Louis Tracy's By Force of Circumstance. Tracy was a British journalist and a prolific writer of fiction. He also wrote under the names Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser. His fiction included mystery, adventure and romance. I liked the 'lightness' of the story; the occasional shafts of humour (it commences: "I hope you will like the wine, sir. It is the best I could get from the 'Bush." "Good wine needs no bush, Jenkins."); the romantic element; the very 'period' feel to everything. I also liked the setting, the area around Burnham-on-Sea and Bridgewater, in Somerset. The character studies were more important than any detection, as the 'baddie' was revealed very early on. 

I will take the other four paperbacks to Rome next week. It is interesting that the jackdaw pictured on the front cover for these changed from a thoughtful bird into one seemingly showing off for the artist!

...and, finally!...

First published in 2021 by Hodder & Stoughton

This paperback published in 2022

The book features an Inspector Banks who, according to the list opposite the title page, has already starred in 26 previous novels. The covers has the inevitable Number One Bestselling Author and I recall seeing him prominently displays at airports, railways stations and booksellers tables. Does he and his Inspector deserve this accolade? The double murder at the start is described in grizzly details; the Moldovan (Moldavian?) Zelda represents a timely nod to a country most of us had only heard of thanks to the barbarian Putin. The interplay between Banks, his colleagues, friends and enemies is quite well done. Not enough, though, to get me reaching for the other twenty-six.  I hope it is not too damning to say it is ideal for the sun lounger and the airport waits.