4/28/21

The Lucky Policeman (1938) by Rupert Penny

Rupert Penny's The Lucky Policeman (1938) is the fourth, of eight, detective novels in the Chief Inspector Beale series and Penny's present-day champion, "JJ" of The Invisible Event, named it his best novel in his blog-post "Policeman's Lot – Ranking the Edward Beale Novels" – praising it as Penny at his "most potent." A recommendation from Jim always need to be approached with some caution and his praise for Sealed Room Murder (1941) is dodgy as hell. But fair's fair, he was kind of right about Policeman in Armour (1937) and Policeman's Evidence (1938). 

So I decided not to cynically go with the bottom-ranked title, She Had to Have Gas (1939), as my next Penny, but blindly trust Jim's judgment on this one. What could possibly go wrong?

First of all, The Lucky Policeman turned out to be a little different from what I expected. I thought it was going to be Penny's take on the Golden Age-style serial killer story, in which the detective has to find the common-link in a series of apparently random murders, but The Lucky Policeman is played like a straight detective story with the serial killings taking place in the background. Well, more or less.

Professor Hilary Peake is an American psychiatrist and "the gold-star alienist" who came to England, in 1931, where he bought a large, old mansion in New Forest and converted it into a private asylum – only has two patients on his hands when the story begins. A religious maniac and a man, Simon Selby, who's quite normal most of the time, but, every five or six weeks, "he breaks out into mental eruptions." Strangely enough, the only thing to lessen the periodic attacks is to let his hair grow unrestricted and denied him the attentions of a barber for the past three years. Nothing else was achieved and Selby became Peake's most puzzling patient. And then he unexpectedly escaped under very peculiar circumstances!

The nurse discovered a dummy in Selby's bed, two of the outside windows bars were ripped away and missing. Selby was gone and nowhere to be found. A week after his escape, people began to disappear from the area of New Forest: a servant girl, a girl hitchhiker and a reporter, which called for a wide and intensive search. But during the search, Sergeant Lee goes missing and his body is later found lying near a tree with a stabbed with something that left a hole "as big as a two-shilling piece" behind his right ear. Even weirder is that the murderer had taken the sergeant's left boot. Over the next few days, more bodies turned up with identical wounds and their left shoe missing.

Chief-Inspector Edward Beale, accompanied by Anthony Purdon, takes on the case and the multi-faceted problem gives them much food for thought. So they're not just preoccupied with chasing an escaped, homicidal maniac.

One of the central puzzles is how Selby managed to wrench two bars from stonework, scaled a brick, twelve feet high wall in his pajamas and evaded capture without supplies – making it a borderline impossible crime. Just a shame he didn't went all out with it as the explanation for the removal of the bars could have been used in two different ways to create a tight locked room scenario. However, the story was already quite packed and another plot-thread that has to be examined is Peake's backstory and why he left America, which happened when he got caught in the meshes of a New York matriarch who led "a home-made army against half the world" in 1929. She has her own reasons to suddenly reappear. There are the finer details of the case, like the shoes, weapon and a burglarized cottage, but Penny overlooked the body the reporter. I don't recall it was mentioned anywhere that his body was found, which made me very suspicious (in combination with something else) and distracted me from the real solution.

Having now read four of his novels, it becomes noticeable how much Penny liked his backstories and background details. Penny wrote and plotted like a historian, which is a double-edged sword as it could easily kill a story. This approach did murder the pace of Sealed Room Murder to the point where even the admittedly original locked room-trick couldn't save the whole mess, but it certainly benefited Policeman's Evidence with its historical subplot and treasure hunt. Penny's fondness for locked rooms, timetables and intricate, maze-like plots probably kept him in check, but shudder to think what the result would have been had he been more interested in characterization than plotting. Thankfully, we got the Rupert Penny puzzle edition.

Penny knows how to occupy his reader's attention with the various plot-threads and then abuse it to distract them, although not always fairly, but the equal amount of attention given to the clues makes it a pardonable offense. 

The Lucky Policeman is, technically speaking, a sound piece of work with the who, why and how neatly coming together in the last chapter, preceded by a false-solution with an excellently handled twist, but I couldn't help feel a little let down – as some things turned out to be less inspired than anticipated. For example, I thought the clue of the stockings was much better than the shoe business.

So, all in all, The Lucky Policeman is a technically-sound, fair play detective novel with enough clues and red herrings to keep you busy for three or four hours, but, somehow, it wasn't quite as convincing or satisfying as it could have been. And while its light years ahead of Sealed Room Murder, I wouldn't place it above either Policeman in Armour or Policeman's Evidence. That being said, The Lucky Policeman still offers a highly unusual take on the GAD-type serial killer and it definitely helped that the murderer's identity was somewhat off the beaten path, which makes it well worth the attention of every fan of puzzle-oriented mysteries. Beale is starting to grow on me as a character ("Damn! I never thought of that"). You can expect more Penny in the future.

10 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this one. It is far better than Policeman's Holiday that was the first Penny I read and which almost put me off Penny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've not read Policeman's Holiday, but Jim, of course, called it "a very encouraging book indeed." But I'll say one thing about Penny, he did something different and interesting with the detective story as its impossible for us to come to a consensus where his books rank on the good/bad scale.

      Anyway, glad you enjoyed The Lucky Policeman and thanks for the warning about Policeman's Holiday.

      Delete
  2. Well, I'm delighted when someone else begins to appreciate something about Penny -- for me the guy's a joy (the over-complex plotting of She Had to Have Gas aside...I really shold reread that book, now I know how dense it is) and there's too much in his wrk for the plot-fiend to ignore him altogether.

    The revelation of thw who and why at the end of this one was a delight for me, but -- as you say -- the fact that this was so different from the kind of book one might otherwise expect was the real joy. To see him taking time over the minor characters, and telling what couold be a cliched and hoary plot from a different point of view was the longest-lasting surprise.

    Hopefully you'll find more to enjoy as you read more. I regret that I've now read everything by him and have yet to find anyone who fills the void he has left in my puzzle-fixated brain...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I may have been too hasty in writing him off, but, in my defense, Sealed Room Murder was a chore to through. I'm normally very forgiving of flawed writers with good plots ideas or original impossible crimes. So he shares some of the blame. :)

      "...have yet to find anyone who fills the void he has left in my puzzle-fixated brain... "

      Christopher Bush? You already love Crofts and Penny. So all Bush needs to join them is you giving him another chance.

      Delete
    2. I'm keen to reread Sealed Room Murder -- it was my first Penny and obviously something about it got me reading more, but it's vague in my memory and I really want to address these flaws you see in it. Second time around, maybe we'll be closer in view (or maybe I'll just love it even more...!).

      As to Christopher Bush...Missing Minutes is your recommendation, I believe, yes? At present I'm having a difficult time completing any book in time to start the blog up again next week, so I'm not committing to reading anything more by him just yet. But I will,I will -- when my reading life is a little happier :)

      Delete
    3. I bet you only remember the last quarter of Sealed Room Murder, which is the best part of the book that unfortunately takes some perseverance to reach. Sealed Room Murder should have been either a short story or have been told in reverse. Starting with the murder and have Beale act as an armchair detective as he listens to everything that happened leading up the murder. That way, the clue of vandalized floor becomes an “a-ha” moment instead of giving part of the game away right before the murder.

      Yes, The Case of the Missing Minutes is my top recommendation. Followed by his home front trilogy and his foray into the impossible crime story, The Case of the Chinese Gong, which has some minor flaws. But, otherwise, a good, JDC-style impossible crime novel.

      Delete
  3. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed this, and even gladder to hear that Policeman's Evidence is even better, as I still haven't read it (as it'd literally been buried under my ever growing TBR pile :). I think I might have liked this one a bit more than you did, but it was my first Penny, so it may well be that I just haven't seen how good he gets. I remember that I pretty exactly came up with the fake solution, so that final reveal was doubly surprising.

    And you're I think you're definitely right about Beale, he's such a fun character. Penny had a gift for dialogue writing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Policeman's Evidence is great fun with its historical sub-plot, treasure hunt, impossible murder and Beale keeping all the suspects in one place by faking a smallpox scare and place the whole house in a two-week quarantine. Penny made me laugh with his description of supplies being tossed over the padlocked gate by a lorry driver. So blunt and funny. I hope you can appreciate the story as much as I did.

      Beale is the detective for everyone who likes Inspector French, but wishes he had a bit more personality.

      Delete
  4. Despite being more receptive to Penny than you, I'm sorry to say you liked this one way more than I did. I had a lot of gripes with the reasoning in the story, which is an issue given that Penny is a Queen-esque author with a preference for focusing on the complexity of a situation and the reasoning that unravels it over any core moment of brilliance...

    I wrote some thoughts on J.J.'s blog, which I'll share here:

    -
    -
    -
    -

    I finally read this one on your recommendation, but am sorry to say I didn’t quite love THE LUCKY POLICEMAN as much as …’S EVIDENCE. While there’s moments of brilliant reasoning, I felt like all of the best material clues and investigation were basically shoved into the last 15% or so of the book.

    SPOILERS DO FOLLOW
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    The stockings, for example, are a really smart clue (that I’m proud to report I figured out the significance of) that Ellery Queen could’ve spun into a whole blasted book called THE GERMAN STOCKINGS or whatever if they were introduced much earlier into the story.

    Instead, though, I felt like the book suffered from a lot of the reasoning being very abstract, oriented around Simon Selby’s lunacy, and the investigation retreading ground a bit too much for my tastes.

    A lot of the reasoning surrounding Selby’s lunacy left a bad taste in my mouth, which doesn’t help that it’s the basis for the lion’s share of the plot. For starters, the idea that a behavior is “too sane” (read: too intelligent) to credit to Selby comes up time and time and time and time and time again, even though there are 3 undeniable facts that make every bit of reasoning following these lines ring hollow.

    Firstly, being a “lunatic” does not make one an idiot; a point is made of BOTH lunatics in the story being surprisingly cogent, and Simon Selby himself is remarked as being quite aware even during his episodes. If Simon Selby wanted to commit murder, the book itself makes a pretty good case that he’d probably be intelligent and aware enough to make intelligent decisions like robbing a home for necessities and making a dummy out of his clothes to hide his escape if that meant escaping detection.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MORE SPOILERS FOLLOW
      -
      -
      -
      -


      Secondly, “lunacy” is not monolithic. Another thing the book makes a point about, for the record; there isn’t just a textbook model of how a lunatic behaves, and such a point is made out of SIMON SELBY HIMSELF. The man is introduced as the most bizarre and puzzling of all lunatics, and yet the book conducts itself with reasoning as if Simon Selby himself being labeled a lunatic means he follows a perfectly predictable set of behaviors. I don’t buy it.

      Thirdly, Inspector Beale can’t seem to get it hammered into his goddamn skull that Simon has long periods of relative sanity, and never once is it argued that Selby is committing these murders with a sane mind. So much of the reasoning follows the lines of “Action taken by killer is too sane” therefore “Simon isn’t the culprit”, but even provided that the book’s (incorrect) (misguided) perspective on “lunacy” is credible, it’s a hugely unacknowledged possibility that Simon Selby may very well be committing these murders while sane. Consider if his plot is like ABC Murders: Simon Selby wants to kill specifically Prudence Hill, and then kills a bunch of ancillary people while removing the shoes to make the murders look like the work of a lunatic. He can then plead not guilty by cause of insanity, and simply return to his asylumed life as a certified lunatic in which he is entirely taken care of and provided for while avoiding the death penalty. Simon has long periods of cogency, but it’s never once considered that the “sanity” of his actions might be contributed to HIM performing them while being sane.

      I also actually thought the plan was a little obvious and uninspired — everything basically unfolds in the exact easiest way they could have from the provided set-up. I practically guessed at the male nurse being an agent of Mrs. Jay from the beginning of the book, and Mrs. Jay masterminding everything to discredit Peake because that is the immediately obvious direction to take the smoking gun of Peake’s history. I was also awaiting some brilliant explanation for the shoes — perhaps ONE victim’s left shoe had something significant and the killer took ALL of the left shoes to disguise it, an idea I humored thanks to the book’s multiple references to “where’s the best place to hide a leaf” from Chesterton — but was disappointed that, again, it wasn’t much more than the one immediately obvious explanation of the thefts being conducted to pin the crime on Simon.

      The investigation was also much more boring than …’S EVIDENCE, in my opinion. Despite there being like five crime scenes, I don’t believe even one of them is actually actively investigated for clues. In fact, I’m pretty sure Penny literally forgot one of the victims, because the dead reporter is pretty much never addressed. All five of the murders felt insanely thin, since it was more about the overall scheme than any of the murders either individually or holistically, but as a result, it made it feel like the book was constantly spinning its wheels, just going over the same points over and over and over again without feeling like they make much progress. There’s not enough in the individual murders to really fill the space between crimes, so there’s a lot of incessant debates about lunacy and Simon (points I already thought were ludicrous, as I said), and unlike in the better Queen stories or even the better Penny I’ve read I didn’t feel like these repeat deliberations over past questions meaningfully moved the plot forward in any way. It often felt like asking the same questions, and producing the same answers, time and time again.

      There are a few points I like — the evidence of the car being used to remove the pipes being disguised as footholds was really smart, and the clue of the stockings was also good — but overall the book felt much too thin, prattling, obvious, and outright confused to live up to …’S EVIDENCE. I’ll keep reading Penny, but this one was not a hit for me.

      Delete