Twenty-Twenty-Six has been a big year for me finally tracking down long-sought stories of murder. First there was Into Thin Air (1928) by Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk, then The Tube (1958) by Boileau-Narcejac, and now I’ve finally run a copy of ‘Death Buys a Ticket’, a.k.a. ‘Nine Hours Late on the Opening Run’ (1941) by Herbert Brean to ground. Very soon there will be nothing left to read.

The setup here sees Marty Malone, state-policeman-turned-bus-driver, having been selected as the driver for the debut journey of a trans-state bus service. Suffice to say, there is pressure for things to go well:

“[T]he weather report isn’t good and the whole future of this company and a lot of jobs are riding on you tonight, son.”

The ten passengers on this opening run comprise two couples, a pair of old ladies, a lone man, and two prisoners handcuffed together with their guard, and all goes well for the first ten miles — until the engine bursts into flames and the bus is forced to stop (“Happens to all motors — nothing to worry about.”). And then murder intervenes, with one of the passengers dropping dead…and suddenly the torrential weather seems like the least of Marty’s problems.

Murder on the first run! And the killer must be sitting right behind him some place.

And so, hemmed in by floodwaters and with a killer in his midst, our driver’s thoughts turn to “solving the killing before it could become a long drawn-out newspaper story that would bring the bus line reams of unwelcome publicity”. And so a surprisingly sensible and Humdrum investigation begins, with the apparent impossibility taking a leaf from Nine — and Death Make Ten (1940) in that a telling fingerprint doesn’t match any of the hundred on board. So…whodunnit?

Also, no, the solution is not the same as in Nine — and Death Makes Ten.

Brean has a certain amount of fun with the ‘obvious suspect’ trope by overloading us with possibilities (the convicts, an argument with a fellow passenger, someone who works with poisons, a passenger who has a vested interest in the franchise failing). And if the setting of a long-distance bus seems like it lacks of opportunities for peril, rest assured that there’s peril aplenty, with two attempts on Marty’s life and another murder before the jig is up.

Brean does well with some neatly-laid clues to throw suspicion in the right direction amidst all those motives, and if one element of the solution of the impossible fingerprints hasn’t been fully clued…well, I dunno. It could be with a little more care, but equally it’s great that this story barrels along and reaches its surprising conclusion with nary a pause for breath. I wouldn’t quite say that this has been worth the wait of all these years, but it’s certainly more rewarding and entertaining than many stories I’ve had to search less hard for.

I don’t know how much short fiction Brean wrote — I mean, I have some idea, though that’s probably not exhaustive — but on this evidence he would certainly warrant further reading. Yes, we’re late in the Golden Age here, but he’s clearly read well and worked hard to follow the precepts of the mystery from this era. His novels would steadily decline in quality post-1950, but I intend to see what else of his criminous output in the shorter form I can find, especially if it pre-dates his debut Wilders Walk Away (1948). He paints quickly and clearly, and is suited to the short form if this is anything to go by. Expect developments…hopefully.

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The novels of Herbert Brean

Featuring Reynold Frame:

Standalone:

Featuring William Deacon: