If you follow the Golden Age blogosphere with any moderate interest, you’ll be aware of the love Puzzle Doctor has for Brian Flynn and the efforts he has gone to, via the wonderfully accommodating people at Dean Street Press, to get as much of Flynn’s work as possible republished. I’ve been slow in my adoption of Flynn it must be said — I couldn’t get on with The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye (1928), Murder en Route (1930), and one other title which escapes me now — but I’m back to give him another go in the form of the well-regarded twentieth novel to feature his amateur sleuth Anthony Bathurst, Tread Softly (1937). It…did not go well.
The main thrust of the plot is pleasingly already underway when we join proceedings: stage and screen actor Claude Merivale has handed himself in to the police for the murder of his wife, who he admits he strangled to death. The twist is that Merivale claims he was dreaming when he did it, and so there’s the small matter of how responsible he is. With Scotland Yard’s Chief Inspector ‘Mac’ MacMorran baffled about what tack to take, he turns to amateur detective Anthony Bathurst to attempt to untangle matters. It’s a novel problem, I have to give Flynn that, but as developments unfold it begins to introduce problems of a different kind.
Now, I don’t include spoilers in these reviews, and I’m not going to break that duck for something purely because it wasn’t for me, but there’s an early development in this one via a photograph that we, naturally, can’t see — if you want to click here for a very heavy hint that’s entirely your lookout — and as soon as that possibility is on the table, well, the mystery is immediately resolved. Indeed, the more people insist around that particular development, and the more Bathurst insists they’re wrong and he’s right, the only option is for the whole thing to become even more obvious. I appreciate that I’ve read a lot of mystery novels, however, and that I twigged to this trick easily before in another beloved book, so one’s mileage will vary.
That aside, I’m also not really a fan of Bathurst, which is fairly crucial given that he’s in most of the book. To me he’s just a cipher of a character who has an irritating habit of dropping quotations into his conversations with ‘Mac’ simply because that’s the one way to seem to give him personality. It’s like someone read Philo Vance and didn’t realise that the affected speech patterns and chaffing manner he adopts are also part of the character he plays. Again, though, if this doesn’t bother you, you’ll probably be fine.
So, what did I like?
Flynn adopts an interesting narrative approach in the first half where we see the case from lots of perspectives, and I thought this a very neat way to get round what would otherwise be some tedious evidence-gathering. I especially enjoyed the early letter from the Merivales’ maid who thinks Bathurst “must be somebody high up in the Cabinet or on the County Council or something like that”. The letters utilised throughout wander around as letters from these sorts of characters would, and show a keen eye for the minor touches of minor character work that is to be applauded.
And, in fairness, Bathurst’s investigation is pleasingly classical. When he first meets Merivale, the questions he asks this would-be murderer are pleasingly askance against expectation, and I do enjoy a scene where the detective is so far ahead of everyone else that all the other character can do is sit there and be nonplussed (I think this is why I enjoy a good Challenge to the Reader so much). There’s also only so much for Bathurst to do, and Flynn doesn’t drag things out too greatly, with Merivale’s trial completed at the end of the first half and the consequences thereof dealt with in the second.
Alas, the second half is where most of the problems creep in, with only so much ground to cover and an obviously-motivated murder that clogs up proceedings until Bathurst and MacMorran can retire to a quiet room and Anthony can spell it all out. Again, delightfully classical and very pleasing for this genre nerd, but most of what he says was already rather obvious, and I could find little in the denouement to get excited about.
Those of you who are able to glide over the massive hint in the opening section will probably have a better time with this, and could probably add a star to the above. This starts well, moves at a good lick, and is to be commended for playing as fair as it can given the visual nature of some of the clues. But four books into Brian Flynn’s oeuvre I’m just not convinced the man’s for me.
Just going to say, in all honesty, I didn’t spot the massive hint you mentioned. This is one of my favourite Bathurst books – if you were to give it one more go, then The Fortescue Candle is the one – but glad you enjoyed the first half which I think is exceptionally well done.
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What makes the classic mystery interesting is how we all pick up on different things: I think of Brad saying how obvious The Emperor’s Snuffbox was to him from the first chapter, and yet I sail right past that and was genuinely surprised by the ending…it takes all sorts 🙂
And, yes, the first half was very good indeed. If I’d not suspected The Thing, I can see how I would have gotten much more out of the remainder. Alas, my brain simply couldn’t miss it.
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I didn’t spot Snuff Box either. In fact, I thought Carr had cheated, iirc. Only read it a couple of times and not recently.
Had a similar experience when watching The Prestige with the missus. Really early on, Christian Bale’s character says something and my immediate thought was exactly what was going on with his character. Muttered to my better half “it’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?” to which she agreed. Turns out she was talking about something else entirely and hadn’t spotted the big thing. Luckily I kept quiet until the reveal or I’d have spoiled the whole thing for her.
If you see it, it’s obvious and it can derail things. Not always – iirc I spotted/guessed Peril At End House as soon as the early shooting, but had a lot of fun then spotting the clues to confirm that I was right. But that was Christie…
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Yes, I suppose that “look for the clues” approach is the way to go — it’s not the author’s fault that, having played fair, the reader is ahead of them: that’s what we want, after all 🙂
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I was also surprised by the reveal in The Emperor’s Snuffbox, my favorite of the Carr books so far. I know I have many, many more to read. It is quite demoralizing to realize that I know the hook of the narrative almost before I’ve gotten into it.
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I have many more Carrs to read, but since they’re at the end of his career I keep finding myself struggling to get into them, and so I go back and reread earlier ones instead.
I need to develop the patience to plough through these less accomplished works, I really do. The guy has sort of earned it with the richness of what he achieved earlier in his writing life. But as much as I tell myself this, I still struggle when the opening of The Cavalier’s Cup is so damn impenetrable…
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It really does happen like that! I’ve had people swear up and down that The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is transparent and obvious while I was absolutely knocked over by it, and then I thought The Devil of Dartmoor was painfully obvious from the first tenth of the book while I had friends who were totally led up the garden path by the misdirection. It really is hard to gauge how other people will see the same stories as you…
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…which is why we all get so much mileage out of discussing them, I feel. It’s equally true of non-mystery books — I was genuinely baffled by the praise heaped on the most recent Booker winner, which seemed to me to be just a collection of cliches spun out to novel-length — but the various levels at play make it more interesting, I feel, when the meta-narrative of author v. reader comes into play.
In this essay I will be…
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Everyone raves about Through a Glass Darkly by Helen McCloy but I knew by the third or fourth chapter exactly what the resolution would be which put me off the book entirely.
I confess that I find Nigel Bathurst a bit of a pill, I keep telling myself I will see his charms if I just read enough of his adventures but so far they largely elude me.
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The nature of that narrative left only really one possible option, so I called it before I’d even opened it 😄 In fairness to McCoy, there’s one good idea at the core of the trick, but more could have been done to distract the even vaguely attentive reader from the obvious solution.
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Dorothy Sayers used the same trick in one of her early Wimsey stories and I had read all of her mysteries multiple times by the point I picked up McCloy.
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I was disappointingly new to the classic mystery when I read the McCloy, and was surprised at its reputation once I’d actually read it. It’s a well-written book, but there are unarguably more accomplished mysteries out there in the genre.
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I remember liking TaGD more than this – up until the disappointing ending. I’d like to introduce my Mystery Book Club to McCloy. Which one would you suggest?
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Unfortunately, Brad, TaGD put me off McCloy and I don’t think I read another one. I have a large ocean of unread books to choose from. So many books, so little time.
If you find a good one, I would love to hear about it.
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Oh, gosh, I’ve found LOTS of good ones: The Deadly Truth, Alias Basil Willing, Mr. Splitfoot. There’s another one I love but Jim hates, so I won’t mention it here! 😉
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I, too, need to read more McCloy, having just taken on the two impossible ones and The Title That Shall Not Be Named. I remember The Deadly Truth being reprinted, but it seems to have vanished since…so is she unavailable again?
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By the way, I’m writing these comments from a bench in Kensington Park, mate. I’m walking around on my first day in London – except I can’t walk because I’m stunningly jetlagged!
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I am so envious! Maybe some day….
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Whoop whoop!
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Brad, Enjoy your time in the UK. I have had an uneven time with McCloy. Even “Mr. Splitfoot” I didn’t enjoy as much as others may have.
The one McCloy that I did enjoy was, “Dance of Death”. I was hooked immediately by the victim found in a snowbank having died of heatstroke. An unusual motive and a fiendish murder method made this memorable.
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It’s on my shelf, Scott, waiting to be read!
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That’s the one I wanted — thank-you for the reminder!
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Your distinction between a clue being inherently too revealing and a seasoned mystery reader recognizing a familiar mechanism suggests a Fairness Split. At the moment of solution, record the visible clue, the prior pattern it activated, and what a first-time genre reader could reasonably infer without that history. Then rate character satisfaction separately from puzzle difficulty. That makes “too obvious” more precise without spoiling the mechanism and preserves the difference between craft weakness and reader experience.
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