Sorry, but I wound up too bored to even skip to the end and find out whodunnit. Basil, the protagonist, is a blithering idiot, and his friends are equally stupid, even if it's just for putting up with him. ( )

Clunking narrative, marginal characterisation and a dreadfully blunt reveal. Not recommended.

The setup is good. A residential hotel in North London with a spread of people living there, one who finds herself no longer living. But from there it's downhill. We never meet the first suspect, he's kept offstage. The second is a Woosterish chap who couldn't make himself seem more guilty if he wore a signboard, so clearly it's not him. A typical bit of '30s English morality surfaces as the two jewel thieves are treated so differently: the working class one dismissed and sent to live in Yorkshire (and think yourself lucky it's not Dartmoor, lad), whilst the middle class one kept by his aunt's money and with flexible ideas on property possession is lauded by all.

Most of the way through, the author tires of frying up red herrings for us and simply announces "the butler did it"; three times in successive chapters, just to make sure we get the message. Arrest, reconciliations and curtain. There is no drama in this novel. We flip immediately from having literally no clue to suddenly having all of them.

Rewritten, this could make a decent screenplay. The structure is decent, just the focus of the writing is crudely handled, going from a string of distractions suddenly to the conclusion. ( )

The British Library provides a great service in republishing various largely forgotten, or at least hard to source, copies of classic crime novels.

This is another of which I had no knowledge of: either as to author (Mavis Doriel Hay) or the book itself. But having picked up a copy at the always interesting Bent Books in west end Brisbane, I am very happy that I read it.

Set in and around the Northern Line of the London Underground, it revolves as to solving the mystery of the murder of the not well liked, elderly Miss Pongleton, who was descending the stairs of the Belize Park station. There are a number of suspects, but much of the fun is watching her nephew, Basil Pongleton, a not very established writer looking to earn enough to be able to wed his beloved Beryl, who is widely expected to be the beneficiary of her estate. For reasons which didn't make a lot of sense at the time it happens (but without which there would have not been a book!) Basil does not tell the whole truth as to what he knows of the death of his aunt. And that leads to more and more convoluted dissembling on his part as Basil tries to keep the contradictions straight, whilst the police continue to get closer and closer to nabbing him.

It plays out like a cousin of the shenanigans seen in that classic play (and movie) Arsenic and Old Lace.

The most sensible people in the novel are Beryl and Betty (the later the fiancee of Gerry, another suspect).

The means of identification /capture of the murderer is a little unrealistic, but the identity of the murderer of itself is not beyond the pale.

An amusing romp.

Two interesting snippets:
- I suspect being set in the 1930s but a sign of the times: a number of times people discuss meeting on the following morning and suggest 'pretty early' which turns out to be
10am or later! Times have changed! (see eg p 41)
- 'plane sailing' I always thought it was 'plain sailing' as in plain = easy or ordinary or smooth. But plane sailing is a method of navigating a ship by ignoring the earth's curvature and considering the earth as a plane. In other words, navigating using a method that is simplified. And hence when something is not plane (or plain) sailing, that thing is more complicated than might otherwise have been.

Apparently Hay only wrote 3 books. It would be interesting to see how she approached the other 2, as Hay could not have utilised the clutzy antics of Basil, which are so much of the this book.

Big Ship

22 April 2022 ( )

Miss Euphemia Pongleton of the Frampton Private Hotel is found dead on the stairs of the Belsize Underground station. Not well liked so there are a few suspects including the possible beneficiaries of her will.
Unfortunately I found the majority of the characters annoying, with a too talky and repetitive style of writing which was probably indicative of the style of the 1930's (The book was written in 1934).
A NetGalley Book ( )

Gerry had arranged with Beryl on Sunday that she should drive him to Euston and take the Alvis back to Beverley House.
“Urgent business,” he had said to her—“and confidential. I’ll explain on the way to the station.”
“Urgent business has become a sort of disease,” Beryl had thought. “Gerry has caught it from Basil.”
“It is business,” Gerry told her, as they drove to Euston, “but not Oundle, Gumble, and Oundle’s business. It’s to do with the murder, and it’s really nothing to do with me at all. It’s awfully difficult to explain and I hate making a mystery of it to you, Beryl. After Basil’s mysterious complications I expect you’re about fed up with mysteries, but I can’t tell you the whole story because it affects two other people.”
“You needn’t tell me a thing if you don’t want to. I’ll take it on trust,” Beryl assured him. But she did sound a bit fed up, he thought.

Oh, Beryl, I hear you. So much fuss and no clear train of thought that makes anything any clearer.

And what is worse, this book was like watching a game of cricket when you have no idea what is going on - you can fall asleep after 10 minutes, wake up a day later, and the score still seems to be exactly the same.

Gawd, I was so bored. ( )