The Elusive Bowman (1951) by Francis Vivian

Athur Ernest Ashley was a British novelist, who started out as a painter and decorator, but turned to writing popular fiction in the 1930s and balanced his literary career with being a circuit lecturer on a variety of topics "ranging from crime to bee-keeping" – two subjects he would later integrate into a detective novel (The Singing Masons, 1950). Ashley had furthermore worked as an assistant editor at The Nottinghamshire Free Press and was one of the founding member of the Nottingham Writers' Club. But what we are interested in here is his two-decade long stint as a now long-forgotten mystery novelist.

Ashley wrote under the name of "Francis Vivian" and produced nearly twenty detective novels in as many years.

One of his recurring series-detectives was Inspector Gordon Knollis, of Scotland Yard, who purportedly "never picked up an undisclosed clue" and appeared in ten mystery novels that were published between 1941 and 1956, which have never been reissued since their original publication – until now. Dean Street Press has the entire series scheduled for republication on October 1, 2018, and they kindly send me a sample of some of these upcoming releases.

The Elusive Bowman (1951) is the seventh entry in the series and has a plot, as the book-title suggests, which draws on the noble, time-honored sport of archery. I would call the book a better and stronger archery-themed detective story than either John Bude's The Cheltenham Square Murder (1937) or Leo Bruce's Death at St. Asprey's School (1967).

Michael Maddison is a robust, healthy man of thirty-five who, unaccountably, had buried himself in a small, unassuming place called Teverby-on-the-Hill. There he acquired the tenancy of the village pub, Fox Inn, which he turned into something more than a watering-hole for villagers and commercial travelers, because Maddison believed pubs should be "centres of communal life" and "homes-from-home for travellers." Something he succeeded in admirably. The remodeled place provides a club-home to the Teverby Bowmen. An archery club boasting twenty-six shooting members under the leadership of a passionate archer, Captain Saunders.

So everything appears to be quiet, peaceful and even prosperous in Teverby-on-the-Hill, but the reader soon learns there's a dark side residing behind the genial facade of Maddison.

Maddison has moved to Teverby-on-the-Hill together with his unmarried sister, Rhoda, and his young niece and ward, Gillian, who had been orphaned in the London blitz, but Maddison reveals he has a very private reason for preventing them to get married – even saying he would go as far to commit murder to prevent it. Or undoing it. He even hits Rhoda with his fist "clean on the side of the jaw" when he caught her eavesdropping. Nevertheless, Rhoda and Gillian intend to marry Captain Saunders. So they begin to think about murdering Maddison. And they're not the only one.

One evening, Captain Saunders brought two hunting arrows to the Fox, a bodkin-pointed one and a broadhead, capable of "piercing armour-steel from a respectable distance." Major Oliver had seen hunting bows in Mongolia that could "kill a yak at forty yards" and did believe there were modern, Western bows and arrows that could do that. So Captain Saunders brought two arrows to show him, but they go missing by the end of the evening and turn up again the following day when Maddison is found in the recently remodeled and enlarged cellar of the Fox – a green and white fletched arrow sticking from his rib. A second arrow, similarly fletched, was deeply embedded in the door of a cupboard.

The Chief Constable decides to ask Scotland Yard for assistance and they immediately dispatch Inspector Gordon Knollis to the village.

A map of Teverby-on-the-Hill

Inspector Knollis is assisted by Inspector Lancaster, of the Maunsby police, who'll probably endear himself to a lot of long-time mystery readers, because he constantly forces Knollis to explain his deductions. A fun, little rib-poke at the detectives who love to mutter cryptic remarks and keep their thoughts to themselves. However, you should not assume Lancaster is simply a plot-device that lays bare the detective's thought process to reader. One of the chapters, entitled "The Deductions of Lancaster," has him deducing the hiding place of "seven prettily feathered arrows" and Knollis had completely overlooked this place.

So they make a pretty good investigative team and are exactly the kind of policemen needed to disentangle this complicated mesh of deception and contradictions.

There are only four suspects, Rhoda, Gillian, Capt. Saunders and Maj. Oliver, who have closely-linked motives and suspiciously moved around the Fox at the time of the murder, which effectively muddled the water – keeping the reader moving between (combinations of) suspects. A problem further complicated by a hidden blackmail plot and the all-important questions why Maddison had converted the cellar for private archery practice and whom he had been plotting to kill. My only complaint is that the red herrings are so thick that they obscured the genuine clues and this somewhat diminished the fair play aspect of the plot.

On a whole, The Elusive Bowman is a well-written, straightforward detective novel with a good, but relatively simple, plot stuffed with clues and red herrings complicated by the cross-actions of the small cast of characters. So a good and solid introduction to the work of a long overlooked mystery writer, who reminded me of Francis Duncan, but without frills and tighter plots. I'll definitely be coming back to Francis Vivian for a second serving.