"Trouble shared is trouble halved."- Lord Peter Wimsey (Five Red Herrings, 1931)
The Golden Age of Detection Wiki has a
summery biography for Morna Doris MacTaggart, whose penname, “Elizabeth X. Ferrars,” was plastered on the covers of more than sixty mystery novels –
appearing for the first time in print at the dawn of WWII and the last one
rolled off the presses in 1997!
That's a prolific writing career covering
a significant chunk of the previous century, during which she garnered praise
for her novels and was compared with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, but
the absence of a solid lead character in her detective stories may have
contributed to her descend into literary obscurity. I know she had two, albeit
minor, series characters in Toby Dyke and Jonas P. Jonas, but from what I
gathered, the majority of her work consists of stand-alone novels and the rule
of thumb with Golden Age mysteries is that the lack of an iconic detective
figure rarely bodes well for a writers longevity. Who remembers now Pat McGerr,
a true post-WWII era innovator, or the man who penned the delightful The
Neat Little Corpse (1951), Max Murray, but a handful of fervent "Connoisseurs
in Murder."
Murder Among Friends (1946) is one of those stand-alone mysteries that was selected by
the late H.R.F. Keating as one of his "one hundred best crime and mystery
books" and Ferrar's regular publisher apparently rejected the manuscript,
because the content was too steamy for a proper detective story, however, you
shouldn't rush off to order a copy on account of its explicit content – which
is adorably tame by today's standard that probably would even consider P.D. James as one of the "cozies."
 |
| (added per request by E.F.'s original publisher) |
Ferrar's coated the plot of Murder
Among Friends in the style of the classic, British drawing room mysteries, in
which the roar of the war is reduced to a murmur from the outside world
penetrating the blacked out windows of the home of Cecily Lightfood – who's
throwing a party for a closed circle of artistic friends. The main objective of
the party is to lift the spirit of a lauded playwright, Aubrey Ritter, after
his wife, Rosamund, killed herself the month before. However, the guest of
honor no-shows, and before long, they find out why: someone busted open his head
in his upstairs apartment with a fire iron. The American soldier who discovered the
dying Ritter heard him mutter the name Janet. One of the titular friends is a
Janet Markland, who even makes an admission, which is immediately detracted,
but the damage has been done and she's convicted for the murder of Aubrey
Ritter – and sentenced to be hanged by the neck.
Everyone seems to accept the official reading
of the murder and the sentencing, except for Alice Church, who feels not so sure
if the evidence is complete or even if they're aware of the full truth. Alice
begins to talk with the people who knew Janet personally and creates a picture
of a woman of whom she's convinced could not have committed the murder. These
four conversations and combined with the fact everyone accepts the murder as a closed
and shut case, gives the plot a murder-in-retrospect structure and may have
been influenced by Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs (1943) and (maybe)
Sparkling Cyanide (1945). The downside is that story has the pace and urgency
of a dying mountain stream. The ending is mixed bag of treats and there were some
clever edges to the solution, but found the explanation for fingerprints on the
murder weapon to be very convenient for the purpose of the plot.
It is interesting to see a writer who spanned the period of time from the Golden Age to almost the dawn of the 21st century, and yet who has very little reputation at all. She is like the third novel in a three-decker Detective Book Club edition that you somehow never get around to reading. Crippen and Landru published a volume of her short stories entitled The Casebook of Jonas P. Jonas last year.
ReplyDeleteThe third novel in three-decker book-club edition is a good description. Ferrars seems like one of those writers that fans are aware of, but rare actually read.
DeleteNever read this one TC though Feraras was a popular enough author in Italy to get reprinted fairly frequently when I was growing up (way back when) - you don't give a lot of evidence of the -so-called steaminess of this book though :) - no need to save our blushes mate!
ReplyDeleteI'm not saving anyone. There just wasn't any steaminess to pass around. Trust me, I'm not keeping any of the steam for myself. ;) The book consists mainly of conservations and if you pay attention to them, you'll discover that people tend to have sex with each other. Who knew, right? Midsomer Murders had steamier stories than this.
DeleteI wonder if Jonas P. Jonas was inspired in any way by Jerome K. Jerome?
ReplyDeleteMy knowledge of Ferrar's work is pretty much limited to this one book and her Wiki entrance, but it's possible, I guess. Maybe one of the more scholary readers among us can answer this question.
DeleteWe need a Bat-Signal to let Curt or John know their inside is needed. :)
I don't see any connection between Jonas P. Jonas and the humorist Jerome K. Jerome except in the form of the name. The Passing Tramp did a review of the book, available on line.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, I'm going to be reviewing a Ferrars next week. When she was alive, she was quite popular on both sides of the Atlantic, a lending library staple for decades. She did introduce additional series characters in the 1980s, Andrew Basnett and Virginia and Felix Freer. She was very prolific and wrote a lot of mediocre books, but there are some very good ones too.
ReplyDeleteI agree with TomCat about this one: very, very talky. Ferrars books usually are, but this one is even more so. I found it rather dull, though as TomCat indicates, one can make the case for some historical significance for it.