The Crime-Book Society paperback edition No.71 - 1939?
This is the fourth Hugh Clevely novel which I have read in the Crime-Book Society paperback series. The others are No. 1 The Gang Smasher (Blog 16th July 2025), No. 41 The Wrong Murderer (Blog 28th July 2026), and No. 54 Amateur Crook (Blog 16th August 2026). Floolishly, I have started to collect another of Hutchinson's Pocket Library paperbacks - their "M" Series, and I notice Clevely wrote two of the first 16 (I'm not sure if there were any more). I have one of them, No. 9 Hell To Pay, so something to look forward to. I wrote a brief account of Clevely's life and work in that first Blog, so there is little point in repeating this; just a reiteration of the fact he wrote for the story paper The Thriller in the 1930s, a publication which included stories by Leslie Charteris, John Creasey, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Edgar Wallace.
Death's Counterfeit is a tightly written thriller, concerning skullduggery around aeroplanes. T[erence].M[ichael]. O'Donovan, a well-known and highly-regarded aviator (he broke the Transatlantic record and won the King's Cup race), has to force land, due to his engine misfiring, on a private airfield belonging to The Greenfield Aircraft Company. Three people rush forward to help: a tall, fair young man, clad in a shabby tweed sports coat, a blue, high-necked sweater and grey flannel trousers. Probably a good egg?; a tall, compactly built, neatly dressed man with dark hair, dark, rather intolerant eyes, and a small tooth-brush moustache. Wants watching?; and a girl, there was a certain air of elegance about her. Her small shoes were very neat; there was nothing clumping about them. The stocking enclosing her long, slim legs were of the sheerest silk. Her hands were carefully manicured with the finger-nails tinted a bright pink. Her dark, wavy hair was admirably set. She had lovely eyes, dark, almond shaped, slightly slanting, set under delicately arched eyebrows. Definitely wants watching then. The three are Alan Hamilton, Captain Geoffrey Leacock, and Alan's sister, Stella.
The Greenfield Aircraft Company are in trouble. They have been preparing for the London-Edinburgh-London race, but three of their four of their Hamilton Swallow machines have crashed preparing for it. The three aviators were killed. No wonder the aircraft are being nicknamed 'The Flying Coffin'. Everyone is feeling nervy, especially as there seems to be a 'ghost' plane involved - it has been heard in the night but not seen. Is it linked to a man named Karvell, who had previous landed at the airfield, taken off again and vanished over the sea - now dead? O'Donovan then meets the father of Alan and Stella, and Bobby Trevor, another pilot who has been with old man Hamilton a long time. When Alan also is involved in a crash (watched by O'Donovan and all the others) and ends up in hospital, it looks as if the 'ghost' plane has struck again - is it Karvell's ghost haunting the area? The Greenfield monoplane's control stick had been broken off at the bottom - hardly the sabotage of a ghost. So, what is going on? It transpires that many years ago old Hamilton and Karvell, who had both studied at the same engineering college in California, had fallen out over a woman. Hamilton had married this Jean, but Karvell, far richer than Hamilton, had used his wealth to get the latter sacked from various jobs. Worse, he murdered Jean and got imprisonment for life. For some reason, he was released and also ended up in England. Trouble ahead? Ended by his death?
It emerges that the airfield had been sold to the Hamiltons by a trickster (known to O'Donovan) called Mallery. A link is established between the latter and the 'dead' Karvell. Have the Hamiltons been 'set up'? O'Donovan goes to London to chase up Mallery - too late - he, too, has been murdered! On to the scene comes Chief-Inspector Williams of Scotland Yard (who has figured in the author's books previously). Between them, they begin to unravel what mystery there is. It centres on one word - revenge. I twigged very early on that Karvell was probably still alive, and that a strange man, with a funny French accent, Monsieur Norville, who lives in a big house between the airfield and the sea is clearly bound up with the nefarious goings-on. But, equally clearly, there is someone within the Hamilton group who is acting as a fifth columnist - is it Bobby or Captain Geoffrey. Again, I sussed that out quite quickly. Notwithstanding my amazing detective work, the tale was still a pretty good one. Shot at by a Westley Richards repeating rifle during a foggy night, nearly blown up by a device placed in his digs in London, O'Donovan is obviously in the 'ghost's' sights as well. But British pluck and skill will carry the day. The 'ghost' planes are explained, Norville is unmasked, and the last Hamilton Swallow wins the London-Edinburgh-London air race, even though it was up against O'Donovan, who came second.
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