There are
prolific writers and then you have John
Russell Fearn. An astoundingly productive genre writer with a
fertile imagination, producing science-fiction, westerns and
detective stories at a rapid rate, who frequently contributed to some
of the well-known periodicals of his day – such as the Toronto
Star Weekly, Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories.
A vast amount of Fearn's novels and short stories was published under
an army of pennames he had at his disposal. Nearly fifty in total!
Over the past
three years, I have reviewed more than twenty of his detective novels
and short stories. And they fall in a number of sub-categories of the
genre: impossible crime tales (The
Five Matchboxes, 1948), pulp-thrillers (Account
Settled, 1949), a detective western (Ghost
Canyon, 1950), science-fiction mysteries (The
Master Must Die, 1953), regular crime novels (Lonely
Road Murder, 1954) and a short story collection of juvenile
detective stories (The
Haunted Gallery, 2011).
So I decided
it was finally time to compile a list of the five best mystery novels
from my favorite second-stringer. The entries are ordered
chronologically.
Thy
Arm Alone (1947) is a normally-looking, apparently
dime-a-dozen village mystery novels revolving around "the belle
of the village," Betty Shapely, who has three principle
admirers and she loves to pit "one against the other" with
complete disregard for their feelings – which makes it hardly
surprising when one of them is found inside the wreck of a burning
car. What makes this novel stand out is its audacious, one-of-a-kind
solution.
A "once
in a lifetime" opportunity the culprit immediately pounced upon
and this gave the book a most satisfying conclusion.
My fellow
locked room fanboy, "JJ" of The
Invisible Event, "really did not like this book" and
called it "a shunpike on the roads of detective fiction."
It goes without saying that he's wrong, but wanted to include his
review
here as a contrast because Thy Arm Alone is one of those
stories that will divide opinion almost right down to the middle
(i.e. are you willing to overlook flaws in the story-telling in
exchange for genuine originality?). The book is still in print. So
you can decide for yourself.
Except
for One Thing (1947) is a splendid inverted mystery novel, à
la Columbo, pitting Chief Inspector Mortimer Garth of Scotland Yard
against a wealthy and distinguished research chemist, Richard Harvey,
who had been engaged in secret to Valerie Hadfield – a beautiful,
blonde actress with an icy heart. Harvey has come to regret his
decision, but Hadfield refuses to take her heart balm and is
determined to make him her trophy husband. So he's left with only one
alternative. Valerie Hadfield inexplicably disappears and a
cat-and-mouse game between Garth and Harvey ensues reminiscent of the
best Columbo
episodes.
However,
Fearn saved his best for last and came up with a shocking, but
devilishly ingenious, explanation as to how Harvey disposed of the
body. A clever and inventive plot written as an inverted mystery with
a classic cat-and-mouse game between detective and murderer.
Death
in Silhouette (1950) is a locked room puzzle with a
two-pronged solution and the last novel of the Miss Maria Black
series, in which one of her former students invites her to an
engagement party. But when she arrived, the groom-to-be was found
dangling from a rope in the cellar with the door locked from the
inside. A classic locked room situation with two explanations, a
simplistic and a complex one, which play out at the same time. You
have to read for yourself how this is handled, but Fearn has to be
complimented for revitalizing a simplistic, shop-worn old trick. A
locked room trick complimented by the more intricate and involved
plot on which it intervered. And this second locked room trick uses a
pulp magazine as a clue!
A second
aspect about Death in Silhouette that has to be pointed out is
that the story takes place in a working class family populated with
ordinary people. This gives the book a very different atmosphere than
you would expect from a detective story with an
engagement/wedding-theme.
Flashpoint
(1950) introduced one of Fearn's most iconic series-detectives,
Dr. Hiram Carruthers, who resembles "the traditional bust of
Beethoven" and "a sort of general specialist" often
consulted by Scotland Yard on crimes of a scientific nature –
comparable to the many series-characters created by Arthur
Porges. Dr. Hiram Carruthers' first recorded case takes place in
his backyard, Halingford, where a fishmonger's shop explodes. The
shop owner is killed in the explosion and Dr. Carruthers is asked to
help the police explain this apparently impossible explosion. And
this is not the only miraculous explosion or fire in the book.
This is very
mature novel, for Fearn, with better than average characterization
and a murderer who's more difficult to spot than usually, but
particularly memorable for the gruesome motive for the destruction of
the fishmonger's shop. A cruel, cold-hearted crime, if there ever was
one, worthy of a judicial hanging.
Pattern
of Murder (2006) is an inverted mystery novel, like Except
for One Thing, which can only be described as the finest
detective story Fearn ever crafted, but inexplicable remained
unpublished until twelve years ago. Fearn drew from his first-hand
experience as "an inveterate cinema goer" and briefly
worked as chief projectionist during the Second World War. So the
background of the story feels authentic, but even better is the plot
that is, as John Norris aptly described
it, a fascinating "mix of traditional and inverted detective
novel plot techniques" with an original murder method –
resulting in an unheralded classic of the genre. And that murder
method is an impossible crime tailor made for a cinema setting.
Terry Lomond
is the chief projectionist of the Cosy Cinema and has a two-hundred
pound debt to a horse-racing bookie, which is why he stages a
burglary at the cinema, but is practically caught in the act by one
of the usherettes. This was the first step on a road of no return.
Terry is slowly brought to the decision he has to kill this pesky
witness to unsure his own safety. The murder Terry puts together is a
technical achievement and unintended left a gem of a clue: pattern of
beautiful circles, whirligigs and crescents in the dust. This book
stands with head and shoulders above every other title on the list.
Fearn may have been a second-string mystery novelist, but here he
briefly played first string. Highly recommended!
Lastly, I
have to give the previously mentioned The Five Matchboxes an
honorary mention, because I think skeptical readers of Fearn, like
JJ, will be able to appreciate it. The Five Matchboxes is an
obvious homage to Fearn's favorite mystery writer, John
Dickson Carr, but the story personally reminded me more of Paul
Halter. The solution to the locked room shooting of Granville
Collins is pure Carr, while the link to a fifteen-year-old murder
case, known as The Clothes Cupboard Mystery, is something you
typically find in a Halter novel. In any case, the result is
something fans of Carr and Halter can enjoy. Even if it isn't a
top-drawer locked room mystery.
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