I was pretty much goaded into this, you should know. Ben at The Green Capsule is diversifying his blogging to extend beyond the works of John Dickson Carr, and the first book he chose was Christianna Brand’s Green for Danger. In the comments, conversation turned to other Brand titles and Brad had the temerity to doubt my fortitude: I don’t think JJ should read Tour de Force either. I couldn’t bear to think what he would make of it! Well, challenge accepted. Now, true, Brand and I didn’t get off to the best of starts — Green for Danger made her very much the new stepmother trying too hard to replace Agatha Christie in my affections — but we’ve had some great times since then, and so I came to this with an open mind.
Now, we mystery fans are a funny bunch. We enjoy nothing more than being thoroughly shanghaied, led a merry-old dance for 300 pages only for the rug on which we thought we’d just got a firm purchase to be swept away and a pit of vipers to be revealed beneath us. Nothing could be more entertaining, believe me. And with Brad’s horror of anticipation ringing in my ears I was all prepared for the stabbing of a member of a tourist party on an Italian island when no-one who was likely to have committed the act was out of the sight of series detective Inspector Cockrill (charmingly, Brand still christens him ‘Inspector’ even when on holiday) to dance the night away, and a staggering piece of chicanery to sideswipe me come the close.
And then, at pretty much the instant the crime was revealed, I put the book down, thought about it for approximately six seconds, and solved it. Now, Brand and I have previous on this and she’s outfoxed me three times before, so I read on. But the more I read, the more convinced I became. In fact, there’s nothing in the middle of the book that contributes in any way to either the false trails she lays (which are scattered at best) or provides any further obfuscation, and I found myself getting bored and increasingly convinced. And as nothing new came to life and one false solution followed another, I turned out to be about 90% correct. And, if I’m honest, I found this lack of real content all rather disappointing.
It’s a clever little puzzle, no doubt, but for an apparently staggering twisty development there’s really nothing too outré for anyone to swallow. And, really, there’s only one way it could have worked, which just sorts of screams at you. Am I missing something, or have I just read too much of this sort of thing? There’s nothing here more unbelievable than anything in The Problem of the Green Capsule, The Moai Island Puzzle, or The Poisoned Chocolates Case, and those novels aren’t themselves without moments where one could raise an eyebrow, scoff, and throw the thing aside. The solution here works, and I enjoyed it tremendously (even if one moment is a slight cheat…). And as a book, it is a lot of fun. If Ellery Queen’s The French Powder Mystery was the lumpy and craw-obstructing stew that started my week, this was very much the delightfully delicate turrón to close things out, even if such things are best enjoyed in smaller portions.
Brand’s slightly scatty prose style is perfectly suited to marshalling her troops at the start:
They were very much like the member of any other conducted tour: thirty of them — gay ones, jolly ones, vulgar ones; refined ones looking down upon the jolly ones and hoping they wouldn’t whip out funny hats and shame them at the advertised ‘first-class hotels’; inexperienced ones who never could make out whether you called this place Mill-an or Mil-ann, experienced ones who phased them all by calling it Milano and furthermore talking about Firenze and Venezia and pronouncing the island of San Juan el Pirata, San Hoowarne…
And from there we get a textbook lesson in sketching character relationships so effortlessly quickly — a shared confidence, a look, the movement of a head or an arm — against an archly-realised background of swims in the Mediterranean “sweetened by the sewers of Rapallo”, or the beautiful brevity of tone that captures a railing “already draped with the bathing impedimentia of the hotel guests”. Brand really does excel at atmosphere, and if some of her clues stick out a bit here and there, a few key moments manage to both hide important information and stick in the mind by languishing in the joy of mood joyfully communicated.
So I’m in a quandary. Even had I not solved this, I would have lost patience at the slowness of Brand’s gear changes, but the brazen way she lays her clues thick and fast at times — the unpicking of the first false solution is a doozy — can’t be dismissed. Her characters are a delight, I love Cockrill more with every moment I spend in his company, and the fairness of this is unquestionable…but the plot lacks the finesse and over-complexity that has marked out the other books of hers I’ve read. Brand gave up mystery writing for a long while after this, so maybe she was feeling the strain. Who knows? It’s good, it’s enjoyable, but it’s no staggering shocker. Those looking for viper-filled pits beneath their rugs need not apply…
The Invisible Event 
I’ve had this on the shelves for a decade but kept putting it off, worried about what I might find. Hmmm, OK, will try it out … eventually!
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Sure, Sergio; it’s not like we’ve heard this before… 😀
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This was the first Brand I read actually, and while I have to admit I don’t remember much of it, I did enjoy the characters and all the (fake) solution throwing overall. The final solution was similar to one of my favorite episodes of (one of the best) Japanese mystery dramas, so that I felt a bit ‘cheated’ out of the experience, but still, it’s definitely not a bad story, and I’d say it works well as an introduction to Brand too.
What I do remember about this book is, well, the actual book I read. I borrowed it from the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and it was quite clear I was probably the first in a decade or so who had even touched the small section of the bookcase with non-translated novels. Grime on my fingers just from holding it, constant sneezing each time I opened a page because of the dust…
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Actually, yes, you’re right that this would be a very good introduction to Brand — weird, considering it’s effectively her final mystery, but for my tastes a far better demonstration of her abilities than Green for Danger. It’s a shame there’s so little in the middle section, otherwise it could be a real treasure, despite being an easy enough puzzle to broadly guess at.
Also, how poor is the cleaning in the KUMC? A shocking treatment of books — someone needs to set up a dusting rota!
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Very impressed you guessed it all so quickly. I got fairly boggled as far as I can remember, though I did read it early on in my crime fiction reading.
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In fairness to Brand, it’s easy enough to guess because of how many clues she throws at you…they all just coalesce in the right shape once the crime is revealed (I tend to prefer going in not knowing who the victim is if I can help it); considering this is the last of the “Big Four” Brands, it will be interesting to see how she approached this sort of thing in Cat and Mouse and others…
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What ARE “the big four Brands”???????
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I was going with Green for Danger, Suddenly at His Residence/The Crooked Wreath, Death of Jezebel, and this one. Partly based around the discussion we had at Ben’s place in the GfD.
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I actually did a little research (because it has been a long time since I read these) to see if London Particular (Fog of Doubt) should supplant Suddenly at His Residence. I don’t have an answer, but reading some critiques, I did realize:
1) Brand dabbled a lot in variations of the impossible crime
2) she was very fond of the multiple solution! You’ve already commented on this with Tour de Force and Death of Jezebel. It’s even more apparent with the two titles I refer to above.
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SaHR is a very clever impossible crime puzzle and — ha! — does that French Powder Mystery thing of keeping a key piece of information back until the very last line (in this case it’s the precise workings of the impossibility…or the main aspect of it); I don’t remember a lot of false solutions in it — certainly not in the way of Jezebel — but it has that Green for Danger element of the finger pointing in a lot of directions, and maintains it brilliantly.
Perhaps Fog of Doubt will be my next Brand, then. I have a copy, so it could be…
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I did not figure out the ending, but I was younger then, and Brand has fooled me in every book but one (Fog of Doubt.) I think you misunderstood my feeling for this book and my concern about how you would react. I thought you would think the essential “trick” too far-fetched, but that did not happen. I also thought, based on your lukewarm reaction to Green for Danger, that you would miss or ignore the ineffable sadness of the ending. This is the thing that Brand does so well, imho: she makes you smile throughout at these people, and when she finally reveals the killer, it makes you sad. This rarely happens for me – certainly not with Christie, a few times with Carr. The only other author who succeeded in doing this consistently was . . . Ellery Queen (after the First Period). Now I’m not saying you’re cold as ice, but . . . At least you enjoyed the interplay of character and the humorous observations. Brand had a knack for both.
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It is a sad ending, you’re right, and that definitely helped to restore a bit of prestige in the closing stages; it kinda reminds me of The Devotion of Suspect X in that regard, because the final note strikes pretty hard even though what has gone before isn’t all that spectacular or engaging.
The essential trick is great; if anything, she gives you too much — one clue in particular jumped out so gigantically I dismissed it as a red herring…but, alas, not to be…
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P.S. I’m royally pissed! I looked at what you’re reviewing next and wondered, what the heck? Is there a new shin honkaku I’m not aware of? Checked Amazon and finally went to LRI. I can only guess you are now one of that halcyon few who gets review copies of new books! I guess I’m not fit to wipe your shoes anymore, mister! Well, I’ll see what you think of it and then buy my copy in a MONTH with the rest of the rabble . . .
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I don’t do review copies, I’m afraid. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m one of the proof-readers John Pugmire uses for LRI and this was one I proof-read; it’s due out next week, hence the timing of my review.
Spoilers: It’s a very good collection of stories; some of them are wonderful.
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You’re a proofreader . . . with YOUR spelling???????
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My spelling is exemplary; it’s my typing that lets me down…
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Did you receive an advance copy of the book by Keikichi Osaka ? It doesn’t seem to be yet out !
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It’s due out next week, and so I’m putting up my review to coincide with that. I was one of the proof-readers, so had the massive honour of seeing it early. And, frankly, it’s just made me even more excited for whatever honkaku we can get our hands on…but more on that next week!
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I note from Amazon that the book will be available on 29th May.
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One of the reasons I liked this book so much is because Brand is clever enough to subvert the reader’s expectations about the nature of storytelling in the mystery context. SPOILER ALERT, don’t read the rest of this if you haven’t yet read this book, although I’ll be circumspect. The opening chapters of the book are generally in works of this period a kind of authorial “throat-clearing” that establishes the tone, the setting, the protagonists … but nothing that’s going to be really significant to the plot in terms of small clues, those always come later. There’s a perfectly fair clue that’s plunked in front of the reader very early on in this book and by the time you need it, you’ve forgotten it because it was presented as part of the throat-clearning exercise. Brand uses your expectations of the kind of material you get at the outset of any mystery novel to colour how well that material hides clues, and I think this is the cleverest kind of construction.
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I know exactly what clue you mean, Noah. She does the same thing in Fog of Doubt, quite brilliantly!
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I’m also fairly sure I know the clue you mean, but I’m very cuious now: do you really think it’s atypical to start dropping clues so early? This could be difficult to discuss without spoilers, but it doesn’t seem that great an innovation to be introducing pertinent information that early; it’s an interesting point, though…
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I recall having mixed feelings about this one, in that I liked it, but wasn’t sure if I loved it as much as I did with ‘Green for Danger’ and ‘Death of Jezebel’. Together with ‘Fog of Danger’/ ‘London Particular’, this was the only other Brand title where I managed to guess what lay at the heart of the trick. But in the case of ‘Tour de Force’ the central trick was, if anything, a very bold one. For some reason, despite guessing the trick, I still liked it slightly more than ‘Crooked Wreath’, where I wasn’t even close to having a good stab at unravelling the mystery…
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Yeah, it is a very bold idea, and as a puzzle there’s a lot here to enjoy. My problem is that as a puzzle there are also a lot of pieces that don’t really fit — the entire middles section with Leo Rodd being summoned before the Grand High Duke of the island and told that he must provide an answer…it kinda pays off a bit with the rounds of accusation, but the entire thing makes all that feel forced, plus it also takes bloody aaaaaages to have that conversation and then go back to the hotel and tell everyone. If the pace didn’t slacked so much during this period, I’d’ve enjoyed the book a whole lot more!
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I like it– the clueing is great– but I’m one who finds the central trick disturbingly implausible. Even if one could pull it off, could anyone believe they could? (A separate issue, if you think about it– as a magician, I know that that every magician has several tricks they don’t do because, even though they would fool, we have trouble believing that they would). TOUR DE FORCE approaches MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA territory, IMO.
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This is where the separation of mediums comes in for me: no, I don’t believ e anyone could get away with this in real life, but I do believe it’s appropriately played in such a way within this story that given the confines of the setup and how Brand uses the…thing…she wants to use it would be achievable.
In part to help it work there is that slight cheat, too, which enables her to continue with one aspect of the writing in this which — if suddenly dropped — would possibly give it away. I didn’t love that when it happened, but I see that as almost a tacit admission that what she does isn’t actually doable. But it’s bloody good fun!
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I really dug this one. Redolent of DoJ-esque ingenuity after the let-down that was FoD. I should preface with the admission that I’m one of a rare breed whose enjoyment of a novel of detective fiction, generally speaking, is directly proportional to how much of the puzzle I am able to solve. I play to win. The only occasions where I don’t mind, even appreciate the author having put one over on me is if I find the actual solution genuinely superior to any I had thought of. Then I will readily raise my hands ups and say “fair play, mate”.
With this one I arrived at the solution before the murder was even official and yeah, felt smug for a chapter or two. Then I thought.. hold up, that’s a bit anticlimactic, isn’t it? Anyone would guess that, it would be a hollow victory with no prestige to it. The books reputation told me there had to be something more, surely this wasn’t The Trick that had GAD veterans gobsmacked at the reveal. It was too ordinary, too cliche. And then it just clicked. Those glorious moments of dawning illumination where the mind whizzes through every noteworthy detail one has thus far registered and before you know it has sewn them all together into the singular, inevitable pattern of horrifying truth. After that I could switch off and just enjoy her trademark prose, fully of wit and whimsicality, and her commendable efforts to mislead.
So yes Christina, we have played. And AB, he has won. (as, apparently, did you JJ. Well done.)
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This experience with Brand taught me a lot about how I go into detective novels, and is part of why I now don’t rad any reviews of a book I’m pretty sure I want to read myself. Had I not been told and told and told how utterly gobsmacked I was going to be, I’d probably have had your response — figuring it out early, and then enjoying the various pointers that brought me to that answer.
Instead, I had that sinking, anticlimactic feeling you talk about, and I think I got less out of it than I should have — indeed, there seems to be the impression going around that I don’t like this book, when in fact I thoroughly enjoyed it (and I love the heart-breaking moment towards the end…) but I guess I was vexed at how I’d been told what an impenetrable puzzle it was and, well, it wasn’t.
So, yes, lesson learned. And I’m delighted you had such a good time with it. With Green for Danger coming out in the BLCC range this year, I’m hopeful we’re about to get a raft of Brand reprints, which is no less than the woman deserves.
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I think you might be understating the puzzle, and in so doing understating your due credit. Solving this as early as you did, well before the chapter where Brand teases us with an inversion of the true solution, is no mean feat. Only a genius on par with myself could manage it! 😉
My original solution was of the ”the person seen walking into the tunnel was not the same person that walked out” kind, which I would wager is what a lot of people had as their theory. Glad I recognised its banality simply would not fly here and cast it aside, which soon resulted in the aforementioned eureka moment.
I denied myself of the pure experience of going into “Green for Danger” blind by watching the movie version with Alastair Sims sometime in 2019 (it was hailed as one of the best GAD adaptations ever made) and I recall having found it obscenely melodramatic. But if its as faithful as people say, I think I would have derived only slightly more enjoyment from the novel.
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I read Green for Danger having been told that Brand was as brilliant as Christie — and, it must be said, having a slightly more elevated opinion of Christie than I do now — and came away a little deflated. But then I went on to read more by Brand and appreciate her talents, and so I’m really looking forward to GfD a second time.
As to solving TdF…meh, sometimes I just get lucky! Usually it’s skill, y’understand, but this was probably just luck or something.
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