Leo Bruce (1903–1979)

Six men, five days a week, occupy their same seats in the same first class compartment on a train to and from London. One morning one of the men doesn’t show up. His place is taken by a man dressed all in black wearing dark sunglasses. When it is pointed out that the seat is taken, the man states “He won’t be coming.”

This is the beginning of a mystery with many twists and turns and connections between the characters.

The missing man is found dead in his car. Suicide is the declared cause, due to a bottle of pills found in the car. But was it?

There is the matter of a will that has been rewritten. Where is it and what were the changes? Who benefits and who was written out?

There is the missing briefcase. What was in it and what happened to it?

And there is more. Carolus Deene’s investigations explore and track down the thread and untangles them to develop a detailed solution to the number of mysteries involved.

Not a simple mystery.… (altro)

Someone is planning the perfect murder, which no one will be able to solve. This is according to the writings in their diary. It has been in the planning, down to the finest detail, for quite some time. The satisfaction won’t be the riddance of the victim — it will be the accomplishment and lack of solution of the event.

A small seaside resort in winter. A promenade empty of evening strollers and not well lit. The victim a random choice. The weapon to be an unusual tool. All is perfect.

The “fly in the ointment” will be Carolus Deene, a schoolmaster with a high success rate of solving murders. Detective Inspector John Moore was given the case and it is he who calls Deene in to assist.

The murder is accomplished, but there are some matters that could provide clues. People were on the promenade that night. The victim had just arrived in town and had been noticed by a few locals. He actually had relatives in town, but had been declared dead due to missing during the war. There are suspects and possible reasons but sorting it out will take Deene and his analytical mind.

Another enjoyable read from the Carolus Deene series.… (altro)

A collection of short stories (some of them extremely short indeed) that Rupert Croft-Cooke aka Leo Bruce apparently wrote for various newspapers. There's a long introduction by Barry Pike that provides interesting context about the author and his creation Sergeant Beef and is worth the read. The collection is comprised of four longer stories featuring Sergeant Beef, plus a miscellany of other shorter tales, some told from the perspective of detectives, some from the perspective of the murderers themselves.

The stories are competently told and, despite their extremely limited length, often contain multiple suspects, multiple motives, and even a red herring or two, which takes some skill. Other than that, though, I'm not sure there's a lot to recommend them: after the first couple, they begin to feel repetitive and unimaginative; also, more often than not, their solutions rely on information that isn't shared with the reader in advance, so they don't even work as puzzles. They were apparently good enough for newspapers, but as a collection I'm not convinced (despite Pike's protestations) that they provide any useful new insights into Bruce's cleverness or craft.

Not a bad read - just not an especially rewarding one. If you have a choice, definitely invest your time in one of Bruce's full-length Beef novels (The Case for Three Detectives is a hoot) rather than this rather banal collection.… (altro)

During a weekend party at the Thurston’s the conversation turned to crime. Norris, a writer, was the most vocal on the subject of mysteries and their solutions. Williams, an attorney, had another take on it. Strickland, a young man whose interest was fast cars, gambling and was a very close friend of the Thurstons also added to the conversation. Little did they know there would be a real murder and real detectives would be called in.

A prank concocted by the hosts became a reality. — a locked door mystery that brought in three detectives, who each came up with three different solid solutions of their own.

While the investigations were going on, Sergeant Beef, the village policeman, had already solved the case to his own satisfaction.

The three detectives: Lord Simon Plimsole, M. Amer Picon and Monsignor Smith have strong similarities to to other well-known fictional detectives. Sergeant Beef has respect for them and their sophisticated solutions, but he relies on what his knowledge is from regular police investigation.

This is a fun read of a parody of the mystery genre. Written during the 1930s when the mystery was coming into its Golden Age.… (altro)