I’m reviewing this out of order, because it’s been a busy week and so I’ve not had time to read the 180-page novella which comes next in this collection, but a 12-page short story…yeah, I’ve been able to fit that in.

In a week it won’t matter, but the order of titles in this first collection of James Ronald’s crime fiction is:

1. ‘The Green Ghost Murder’ (1931)
2. ‘Too Many Motives’ (1930)
3. ‘Find the Lady’ (1930)
4. Six Were to Die [n] (1932)
5. ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ (1929)

‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ (1929) is — as far as any of us know — Ronald’s debut piece of crime fiction, and I very much enjoy how his first foray into the genre was a slightly uncommon idea. The capacity of a blind man in a sighted world was far from original, Ernest Bramah having explored the idea already in his superb Max Carrados tales, but Ronald could certainly have picked an easier milieu in which to operate. Indeed, one suspects that it’s the very difficulty of this setup which intrigued him, and set him on the path he was to follow for a number of years in writing inventive, compelling crime fiction that did such excellent work in bringing unexpected wrinkles into the genre.

We are introduced to 41 year-old Martin Longworth, who has been blind for twenty years, having sacrificed his eyesight at the altar of “over-study” while at Cambridge University. Having moved to a small village, Longworth enjoys a full life simply by dint of failing to allow his blindness to define him. Ronald is alive to the possibilities that restricted sight offers — the compensations of sound, for one — as well as realistic about how such a life would have to be led: certain objects must be placed in precise locations in order to be easily found, of course, but when these considerations are observed there’s nothing unrealistic about how Ronald writes Longworth’s existence. Blindness is not a superpower, but nor is it the barrier that those of us yet to experience it might imagine it to be.

Much like with Baynard Kendrick’s Captain Duncan Maclain, Longworth is a capable and practical man, who embraces the world he inhabits on the terms he must accept, and his confidence in doing so has resulted in even those who know of his ailment to forget it. Indeed, when he meets the village’s new tobacconist Blaine, that gentleman doesn’t even realise Longworth is blind at first, such is his comportment. Now, yes, such effects are easily achieved in fiction, where characters are free to notice as much or as little as their creators allow, but the point is that Ronald makes you believe it in a very short space of time.

Things develop from here in a way that makes a literal truth of the title, and while some aspects of Longworth’s behaviour might border on the fanciful, it’s a fun little time that builds to a good suspense sequence and pays off well. The refrain of ‘I take my weakness and turn it into a strength in Situation X’ is a narrative conceit that I especially enjoy, if only because it enables creative authors to do something that might otherwise be considered precluded on account of their limitations (in particular, one of the weakest Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child uses this idea very cleverly in its inevitable all-action finale — which again highlights the intelligence that went into so much of Child’s writing for a number of years…but I digress).

I’m not going to pretend that I can drag this out to 1,000 words, but I am moved to reflect on the way classic era crime fiction utilised blindness to very clever effect, viewing the condition from the perspective of how information might be processed differently in a way that is pure Golden Age reinterpretation. Carrados, Maclain, and the street peddler from Bats Fly at Dusk (1942) by A.A. Fair are recent examples that I’ve encountered, but I’ll add Longworth to the list and keep an eye out for other examples…do let me know below of any notable ones you’ve encountered in your own wanderings.

Knowing this shorter story finished off the collection, I’d been intending to reflect on this first volume as a way to give the post a little more meat, but time is short and, frankly, I’m not sure what to add to the posts I’ve already done on the earlier Daniel Britling stories herein (he does not, incidentally, appear in this one, in case you were wondering). I remain in frank disbelief that this undertaking of Moonstone’s to reprint all Ronald’s crime fiction is really happening, and I look forward to more experiences with his writing as he grows in confidence — anyone who starts this strongly more than likely had something to bring to the genre, and in the months and years ahead I look forward to exploring that with you all.

All four of you who read these posts, I mean. I’m not kidding myself.

A very merry pre-Christmas panic to all who observe. Hopefully I’ll find time amidst my own disorganisation to revisit Six Were to Die (1932) before next week rolls around.