Simon Troy (1904–1974)

i think it worthwhile to quote verbatim the front and back cover of my penguin edition of thurman warriner's "the doors of sleep". the front states "occult, evil, and macabre events in rural sussex" and the back: "the archdeacon was worried. to outsiders the sussex villages of charlton slumbers, slumber st mary's, and little slumber seemed as idyllic as their names. but the archdeacon knew that there was something very wrong about his host charlesworth vinery; about the way he dealt with his tenants; about his apparent power over his beautiful wife. the archdeacon had come to preach a harvest festival sermon but it turned out that he had more need of his powers of exorcism." now, exactly how bad does this book have to be to make you feel disappointed in buying something like this? i mean... the author's name for a start "thurman warriner" is a work of genius in itself. then we have the village names, the caddish villain charlesworth vinery and - we soon discover - series detectives with the names archdeacon the venerable grantius fauxlihough toft, mr ambo and john franklin cornelius scotter... there's even a showman called amen sleep, with his grandchild called starry sleep. how can this fail? i mean SERIOUSLY?

well... it doesn't so much fail, as not quite fully succeed. there are some loose threads here and there which warriner seems to be more than aware of - some online reviews of his work seem to accuse him sometimes of acres of pages of conjecture and discussion rather than actual storytelling, and particularly towards the end of this book when toft and ambo's go-to man (and woman) of scotter and lottie turn up there's quite a bit of this going on. there are a couple of plot points that warriner doesn't really seem fully satisfied with and all credit to him for actually discussing this openly in the character dialogue, this still doesn't stop the reader from being rather less than convinced by his reasoning. it's a slight quibble though, because otherwise warriner is quite a wonderful writer. he's at pains to make the murder make sense - even though the actual incident (man tied to a roundabout in the middle of a village green overnight) is utterly grotesque - where other, lesser writers would have just settled for the admittedly startling image. in fact i thinki i can safely say that warriner's real claim to genius here is that unlike other authors who dabble in the fantastic and grotesque in crime fiction - i'm thinking of john dickson carr, margery allingham and, basically, every other crime writer of the golden age to the fifties - he actually makes the unusual events of the book seem *plausible*. the nearest comparison to "the doors of sleep" is michael innes' "appleby's end" but the difference here is that the village locals, the central family, even the occultist character all seem... likely to exist. it's quite an achievement given the plot of the book

a few other thoughts about the book: warriner is a nicely evocative writer without ever relying on the florid or hackneyed expression. the book is incredibly pacey, yet never seems hurried either. most lesser crime writers would have padded this out with local colour and some crazy antics with the heroes (i mean archdeacon toft is described as a massive, fat, food obsessed cleric but warriner seems to be reluctant to flog this point to death - compare with john dickson carr, a far better writer obviously, and his occasional lapses of judgement with the ostensibly similar henry merrivale). when scotter and lottie turn up towards the end, these rather odd, scruffy "charing cross road types" (as warriner calls them) who seem the biggest indication of the book's 1955 origin, do cause a tiny furore when they interrupt one of toft's sermons... but the incident is merely brushed aside in a couple of lines. i can easily see other crime writers avoiding warriner's economy of writing here and needlessly milking the slight comedic conceit for all its' worth

and possibly the oddest thing about warriner's characters are how suprisingly MOVING they are. i'm thinking of how christie deals with a similar occultist character to shand in "murder is easy", and turns him into a camp, shrill pain in the arse. there's a delicacy to shand, a poignancy to his role in the book, a real sense of sadness to his position in life. similarly i've come across countless relationships in crime fiction akin to the anton/ alyson/ charlesworth one here but never one remotely so moving and touching as this. and as for mr ambo - sort of the main detective of the three ostensinble heroes (toft has the big ideas and strides around being important, scotter does the leg work and the reasoning but ambo has the sense of humanity and the good judge of character of the trio) - there's a lovely, albeit achingly sad hint of a sad past somewhere in there... but one warriner only hints at, teasing out gently with great skill

warriner seems a rum cove of his own accord: a youthful theatrical career, a poultry farmer, cinema technician and finally author. apparently, according to the penguin blurb, "his favourite pastimes are walking and finding obscure pubs and churches". and i'm glad to say he put those pastimes to good use... it's not the greatest crime novel ever, but it's full of good ideas and haunting characters and set pieces that i fancy will hang around my head for years. i'm going to look very hard for the other ambo/ toft/ scotter books. very good indeed… (altro)