Maybe it’s the changing of the seasons, but I am really struggling to maintain interest in a lot of what I’m reading at present. Latest victim is Murder in Blue (1937), the debut novel of Clifford Witting, whose first half flew by in a whirlwind of delightful wit and intriguing possibilities…only for me to have to drag my way through the final 60 pages to a conclusion I’d lost interest in long before. And yet this sounds like exactly my sort of thing: plenty of clever false leads, lots of intelligent speculation, an apparently simple murder made devilishly complex by Witting’s undeniable intelligence of design (c.f. Let X be the Murderer (1947)). So, wherefore the capitulation? Let’s investigate…

Discovering the dead body of a constable while out on a night-time walk, bookseller John Rutherford notifies the police and, in short order, brings Inspector Harry Charlton into proceedings. What follows is a gently charming story of murder and investigation with a few notes of peril mixed in, as Charlton pops up at least once a chapter to inform Rutherford of some development or other and then disappears again to do most of his investigation off-page. And that’s my first gripe: Rutherford is a fine enough narrator, though a little bland as they go, but seeing so little of Charlton’s investigation, especially when he arrives and makes some startling declaration or another, really does keep you at arm’s length from proceedings.

The characters are fun, and the occasional moment of joyful oddness shines through (“Mr. Trench sat on my aunt.”) but most notable here is a sense of cynicism that renders Charlton about as characterful as I’ve seen him in the four books I’ve read:

“After sifting endless evidence and sorting out the grain from the chaff, and after following up assiduously the slightest of clues that may lead us to Edinburgh or the West Indies, we build up against a man a cast-iron case; and then some solitary, sentimental nit-wit on the jury, who’s fallen for the culprit’s honest blue eyes, sticks out against a conviction.”

I had put this down to a sense of post-war awakening until I realised that the book was published before the second world war, making its commentary on the subject of conflict all the more poignant:

“I’d rather be killed like that than mown down by a machine-gun. It’s more human. That’s the dreadful thing about war — the impersonality of it. I can understand a man killing a fellow ’e hates, but to murder a chap who might, if you’d met him in peace-time, ’ave become your best friend, just because what your politicians think doesn’t agree with what ’is politicians think — it’s all wrong.”

Things trundle along pleasantly enough, with Rutherford’s narration throwing out the occasional amusing line (“I turned my hand to writing thrillers, which were ejaculation-marks and no plot.”) between bouts of slightly syrupy romance, and it felt difficult not to wish that this was a little more engaging: the “pedestrian recital of facts” that Rutherford aims for is well and good, but the distance and lack of urgency did, after a first half which undeniably flew past in very little time, begin to wear on this reader.

There is also, and this is where Rutherford-as-narrator causes problems, far, far too much speculation done by Charlton at each stage of development. Yes, it’s interesting to see a simple plot spin out in so many directions, but it all feels rather too Early Ellery Queen when yet another slab of text outlining the six interpretations that could be put on an action hoves into view. It’s no doubt very clever, but glimmers of intrigue, like whether the murder was committed because of the man or his job, did not, alas, alleviate the density of these speculations…and this puzzle-fixated nerd tired of the fixation on puzzling elements when there was, like, some investigating that we could have gone and done.

I also had the slight problem that the revelation at the end of chapter XIII gave away the culprit immediately, and the ensuing 70 pages brought us closer only by tiny degrees to an answer that positively blared from the rooftops. My three previous Witting titles were all at least 40 pages too long, but, lord, the final stretch here almost defeated me. Your mileage will of course vary, but all I can do is offer my perspective: Witting’s good at spinning unfruitful beginnings into something more Matryoshkan, but, damn, I wish his editor had exhibited a sterner hand. My thanks to Galileo Publishers for the review copy and their continued efforts to bring these titles back, but for my money Witting definitely improved on this debut in the later work I’ve read.