9/20/18

Vegetable Duck (1944) by John Rhode

John Rhode's Vegetable Duck (1944) is the fortieth title in his lengthy, long-running Dr. Lancelot Priestley series and has been praised by many readers as a particularly clever, crisply written detective story with an ingeniously contrived method for poisoning a piece of vegetable marrow – making it a veritable chef-d'oeuvre of the series. So imagine my disappointment when this supposedly five-star mystery turned out to be a pretty average, middle-of-the-Rhode entry in the series.

I've only read an infinitesimal fraction of the Dr. Priestley series, but Vegetable Duck is a second-tier title compared to The House on Tollard Ridge (1929), Death on the Board (1937), Invisible Weapons (1938), Men Die at Cyprus Lodge (1943) and Death in Harley Street (1946). However, my dissatisfaction has more to do with the excessive, undeserved praise than with the story's inability to live up to it. But it has negatively affected my reading.

So this is very likely going to be a short, poorly written and disappointing review, because I have not all that much to say about it. The reader has been warned.

Vegetable Duck begins with the return of Charles Fransham to his London service flat, Mundesley Mansions, who, earlier in the evening, had been lured away from his diner by a mysterious, unaccountable telephone call – leaving his wife to enjoy a dish of vegetable duck with potatoes, gravy and cheese. And in case you're wondering, vegetable duck is "a marrow, not too big, stuffed with minced meat and herbs" and "baked whole." A dish that was not only a personal favorite of Letitia Fransham, but also turned out to be her last meal. She's found in the dinning-room, unresponsive, when her husband returns. The doctor who examined the body suspects Mrs. Fransham had died from "the effects of a powerful dose of some vegetable alkaloid" and alerted the authorities.

Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, of Scotland Yard, is placed in charge of the case and initially focuses his attention on the husband as the primary suspect.

Charles Fransham tells Waghorn he had been called by a man, named Corpusty, who introduced himself as an employee of a private-detective he had hired and wanted to meet him immediately, because there had been developments in the case – only Corpusty never turned up. And when Fransham returned home, he found the body of his wife in the dinning-room. Yes, this is very reminiscent of the murder of Julia Wallace in 1931 and mentioned a number of times throughout the story. The Wallace Case had captivated the imagination of many mystery writers of the time and Dorothy L. Sayers even dedicated a chapter to the case in The Anatomy of Murder (1936).

Fransham had hired a private-detective because he has been receiving anonymous letters with shotguns drawings on them. An obvious reference to a fatal shooting incident that had killed his brother-in-law, but there are many people, such as the now retired Superintendent Hanslet, who are convinced Fransham had shot his brother-in-law. Simply made it look like an unfortunate hunting accident.

So there are more than enough potential leads to follow up on and then there's the genuinely clever method for introducing a lethal dose of digitalis into a piece of vegetable marrow. A problem clevery explained by Dr. Lancelot Priestley over the dinner-table and also solved the puzzling problem of damp, water-damaged envelope. Sadly, Dr. Priestley is only peripherally involved and acts more as a soundboard to Waghorn than as a armchair detective. Nonetheless, the poisoning method Dr. Priestley laid bare was as cunning and inventive as the unusual poisoning method from Gladys Mitchell's little-known The Man Who Grew Tomatoes (1959). But the poisoning of the vegetable marrow also happened to be the only aspect of the plot that lifted the story, ever so slightly, above average. Only very briefly.

Vegetable Duck has some good detective work with several interesting plot-threads, but, as a whole, the story has nothing to justify the inordinate amount of praise it has received over the decades, because the murderer really sticks out and can easily be pointed out the moment this character enters the story – becoming even harder to ignore when a second murder is committed. While the murderer's identity is obvious, you're not given sufficient clues to work out any of the (other) problems for yourself. So, even as a howdunit, you can hardly label it as a perfect, five-star mystery novel.

Admittedly, the book was not as poorly plotted as The Milk-Churn Murder (1935) or as dull a story as Death Leaves No Card (1940), but neither was it anywhere near as good or brilliant as any of the earlier mentioned titles. My unmet expectations killed any possible enjoyment I might otherwise have gotten out of it. Not entirely fair, I know, but I went into the story expecting a monument of the series. Evidently, this happened not to be the case.

Anyway, I have complained and rambled on long enough. Vegetable Duck didn't work out for me, but there's more where that book came from and will simply lift another John Rhode title from the big pile in the coming weeks or months. The Robthorne Mystery (1934), Mystery at Olympia (1935), Death at Breakfast (1936) and Nothing But the Truth (1947) all look very promising. So stay tuned.

22 comments:

  1. Thanks for the warning about 'Vegetable Duck'. I'm looking forward to your review of 'Robthorne Mystery' - but I'm possibly even more curious as to how you managed to procure a copy without going into bank overdraft...!

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    1. No idea when I'll actually get around to reading The Robthorne Mystery, but it's on the big pile. So I'll get to it eventually.

      "I'm possibly even more curious as to how you managed to procure a copy without going into bank overdraft...!"

      Ah, well. You see, you can get Vegetable Duck much easier and cheaper under its generic U.S. title of Too Many Suspects, which is why I used the original title for this review. There's a 1945 Detective Club Book omnibus edition that has Too Many Suspects and is a whole lot cheaper than the original U.K. edition. So if you're still interested...

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  2. I am glad to know I am not the only one surprised at the high praise lavished on this. Love the title though.

    Incidentally, I've just finished a locked -room mystery: THE PHANTOM MURDERER by B.G. Quin and was wondering whether you have read it (didn't find a mention of it in The Muniment Room).

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    1. I was afraid I was going to be the lone descender on this one, but good to know I'm not the only one who thinks it's overpraised. Yes, the title is great. Such a shame its only an average mystery.

      I have not read The Phantom Murderer. The name B.G. Quin does ring a bell, somewhere, but can't say I'm really familiar with this title or author. Are you going to review it?

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    2. Here's the only information I could get on B.G. Quin:

      https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=15125

      Won't be reviewing the book anytime soon as I am off-blogging for the time being but eventually would. The last chapter has the detective describing the locked-room trick which, I am sure, you'll understand more than I did:)

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    3. I'll keep B.G. Quin and The Phantom Murderer in mind, however, it appears to be a scarce, hard-to-find title. Did you read it in English or a cheaper, easier to find translation?

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  3. Oh, I liked this one, such a fascinatingly complex murder scheme! Of course I liked Death Leaves No Card too. Didn’t like Nothing But the Truth, I’m about to check your link on that one.

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    1. Hence vegetableduck! I liked Death Leaves No Card, too, by the way.

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    2. Oh, yes. You've been going by The Passing Tramp so long, I forgot you used to go by Vegetable Duck on the GAD group.

      The link to Nothing But the Truth goes to a review by the Puzzle Doctor.

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    3. I don't recall anything really ingenious in Truth, but you may find otherwise. I have a lot on his books in Masters, but I suppose I should do an official top ten.

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    4. "I suppose I should do an official top ten"

      Do it!

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    5. But the responsibility is so tremendous.

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    6. You've been training for this for decades. From reading your first Rhode to writing Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery. You're ready, grasshopper!

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  4. This was one of the first ten or so Rhodes I read, and I enjoyed it. Looking back, there are some Rhode tropes (his murderers almost always disguise themselves, and lay false trails), but death by vegetable marrow is fun and clever; the Wallace case inspires Rhode to better characterization than his average; Mr. Corpusty is a cool name; and I like what the murderer is arrested for. And that's off the top of my head, 17 years later - so it obviously stuck in my memory!

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    1. To be honest, my opinion and tone of the review would probably had been less negative had it not been for the lavish praise heaped upon it. I expected a Rhode novel on par with Death on the Board and Death in Harley Street, but instead got something much closer to The Fourth Bomb. Rhode has written better and worse than Vegetable Duck. So why all the praise? Is it the book-title? Is it the ingenious poisoning method?

      You know what? This might have been a classic had it been condensed into a short story, but, as a novel, it simply didn't work for me.

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  5. If you ever plan to kill someone with a vegetable marrow, this is the way to do it. Just as Street revealed how to slay someone with a hedgehog. (You need dye). Personally, I think it's Street's murder methods that are his great claim to posterity's fame, and I liked this one. Not that I was looking for any, really! It's all strictly aesthetic.

    I think this was one of two Street novels from the period that adapted murder methods from R. Austin Freeman short stories. No slouch himself, RAF!

    There's another Rhode that mentions Vegetable Goose, which as I recollect is a wartime rationed version of Vegetable Duck. I got into this whole thing, lol. Martin Edwards said it's the most counter-intuitive mystery title he he had ever come across, but that's part of the appeal to me.

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    1. Street could look at anything innocuous, and make it deadly. Bedsheets, bathtubs, garden statues, firewood, doors, hot water bottles - nothing's safe!

      Raspberry Jam?

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    2. Raspberry duck! For me Street was to murder methods what Carr was to locked rooms and Christie to least likely persons. He may be a more stolid writer, but he had a touch of GA baroque genius when it came to murdering people.

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    3. Most accidents happen in the home - and Accidents Do Happen, thanks to Major Street!

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    4. So... Rhode is the male counterpart of Marsh when it come to murder methods? She used a piano, a bottle of champagne, a pool of mud, a couch and a perfume bottle. Although she was more blatant about it than Rhode.

      "Martin Edwards said it's the most counter-intuitive mystery title he he had ever come across, but that's part of the appeal to me."

      The title is counter-intuitive for a mystery novel and this is what appealed to me as well, but, besides the ingenious poisoning method, Vegetable Duck deserved a better story to go with the uncommon, but splendid, book-title.

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  6. Street's are scientifically accurate and so ingeniously detailed. Marsh was just flash and sizzle.

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