The Swinging Death (1948) by Brian Flynn

Brian Flynn placed his thirty-fifth Anthony Bathurst novel, The Swinging Death (1948), among "the best of my humbler contributions to mystery fiction" and hoped "those who come to read it will find themselves in agreement with me in this assessment," which until recently was easier said than done – as it used to be one of Flynn's more elusive titles. Even to this day, you can't find a picture of the original dustjacket anywhere online. However, The Swinging Death itself has recently returned to print when Dean Street Press reissued it last year together with the previously reviewed The Sharp Quillet (1947) and Exit Sir John (1947).

This new edition comes, of course, with an introduction by Steve Barge, of In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, who notes that, "starting with Black Edged in 1939, Brian seemed to want to branch out in his writing style" and veered away from the traditional detective story. Flynn began to experiment with the inverted format, thriller trappings and "an increasing darkness in some of his villains," but "switched back to a far more traditional whodunnit format" beginning with The Sharp Quillet. Just like it's immediate predecessor (Exit Sir John), The Swinging Death feels like a return to those earlier, more conventional mysteries Flynn wrote in the 1920s and '30s. Flynn front-loaded this one with a murder so strange and bizarre, it lured Anthony Bathurst back into the game ("For nearly a year now, crime had eluded him...") and "the fascination of the chase touched him again with its spell-binding fingers."

Flynn's The Swinging Death opens with Dr. Julian Field, from King's Winkworth, journeying back home after visiting a patient in Stoke Pelly, but, for some unknown reason, he gets off the train at the wrong railway station, Fullafold – a small, rural village. And never returned home. That night, a village girl finds Dr. Field's nude body swinging from a hook in the porch St. Mark's Church. A terrible murder that becomes "a proper mystery" when some incredibly strange clues and incidents come to light.

Firstly, the murderer divided Dr. Field's clothes in two consignments and dumped them on the doorsteps of two different churches ("some at Fullafold—some at Friar's Woodburn"). Secondly, the only items found missing among his possessions is an unknown sum of money, a bunch of keys and a specimen of sputum which Dr. Field took from his patient at Stoke Pelly. Thirdly, Claudia Field received a phone call on the night of the murder telling her husband got seriously injured in an accident, asking her to immediately go to the railway station at Friar's Woodburn, but, when she arrived, there had been no accident – nobody knew anything about her husband or a message from the police. When she returned home, Claudia discovers the house had been entered while she was away and husband's surgery had been turned over.

Anthony Bathurst calls it "a case after my own heart" and Sir Austin Kemble, the Commissioner of Police, sends him together with Chief Detective Inspector Andrew MacMorran to the scene of the crime to sort out the mess. I should say here that Chief Inspector MacMorran is no Lestrade and pairing him up with Anthony Bathurst is almost as perfect a team as Christopher Bush's Ludovic Travers and Superintendent George Wharton. I like it when the theoretically-minded amateur detective and the experienced policeman compliment each other ("just another illustration of the superiority of two heads over one"), which is regrettably a lot rarer in detective fiction than you might think.

Bathurst and MacMorran concentrate on the route between King's Winkworth and Stoke Pelly, "the two places which seem to me to be the poles," between those two given points there are Greenhurst, Four Bridges, Fullafold and Friar's Woodburn – each one of which "is not entirely devoid of interest." So they begin to retrace Dr. Field's steps on that faithful evening along the country railway stations as they question people and poke around for clues along the way. This sounds like something straight out of Freeman Wills Crofts and in some way it is, but not one of those time-table mysteries so many of you dread. So no ingeniously contrived, minutely-timed train alibi. And while there's an alibi, of sorts, at the core of the plot, Flynn goes for something different (SPOILER/ROT13: n cynl ba uvf snibevgr cybl, gur frperg vqragvgl). But the resemblance to Crofts is interesting considering the story is streaked with nostalgia.

The introduction mentions Flynn abandoning his thriller-ish experiments with the inverted mystery format coincided with "a family tragedy during the Second World War." There's this almost nostalgic hankering for the detective stories of yesteryear with several nods to G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown, E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913) and Bathurst's baptism as a detective in The Billiard-Room Mystery (1927). And, not to be forgotten, Flynn planted a Sherlockian-themed Easter Egg. The Swinging Death also reads like it was published in 1928 instead of 1948 as the First World War casts a cold shadow over the second-half of the story and something about the solution feels like it belonged to a different era of the genre (ROT13: anzryl gur zbgvir naq nggvghqr gung “gurer vf fpnepryl n pbhagel va gur jbeyq jurer qrprag crbcyr qba'g ertneq gur oynpxznvyre nf fbzrguvat yvxr n fyht hcba juvpu lbh fubhyq fgnzc lbhe sbbg,” juvpu jrag bhg bs snfuvba nsgre gur 1929 penfu naq svanapvny fcrphyngbef gbbx gur cynpr bs oynpxznvyref nf gur zbfg zheqrenoyr punenpgref va n qrgrpgvir fgbel). Only thing breaking the illusion is that the Second World War rears its ugly mug as well. Regrettably, the 1920s was the decade the genre experienced growing pains and often lacked the rigour associated with the succeeding two decades. The Swinging Death unfortunately also resembles a 1920s mystery in that regard.

A pity as Flynn tried something incredibly cheeky with the ending, which can absolutely work, but you need to deliver something especially good or original to succeed. Where it falls short is that Flynn did a lot of mystifying in building up a strange, utterly bizarre murder, but then had Bathurst wave away some of its most intriguing elements as trivialities. For example, the missing keys posed a baffling question: why did the murderer need to climb up the balcony at the back of the house to search the surgery when possessing the house keys? The answer (ROT13): “V pna bayl guvax gung gur xrl zhfg unir orra zvfynvq va fbzr jnl. Cbffvoyl ybfg—be cbffvoyl qebccrq fbzrjurer.” And what happened to the stolen sputum specimen? Why steal something like that? The answer (ROT13): “Puhpxrq njnl cebonoyl... V qba'g guvax zhpu vzcbegnapr arrq or nggnpurq gb gur snpg gung vg'f zvffvat.” You can't really do that, if you try to pull a stunt like that, because you take away that oomph it needs to land. On the other hand, the central puzzle of Dr. Field's last journey and the two parcels of clothes is handled with Flynn's customary care and competence. Something you either spot early on in the story or overlook entirely. And would have been even more impressive had Flynn not done something similarly in a previous novel with more audacity.

So, while the ending is a mixed bag that fell a bit short, The Swinging Death is still a thoroughly enjoyable return to those earlier, more conventionally-styled mysteries, but readers new to the series are strongly advised to start with those earlier mysteries. The Swinging Death is best appreciated by those who are already a fan of the series. I'll be following that advice myself as the next stop in the series is either going to be The Creeping Jenny Mystery (1930) or The Case of the Purple Calf (1934).