Murder, M.D. (1943) by Miles Burton

If you have read the 2023 post "The Hit List: Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels," you're probably aware of my fascination with detective fiction written, or taking place, during the Second World War – practically a subgenre at this point. There are even a few eerily prophetic mysteries, like Darwin L. Teilhet's The Talking Sparrow Murders (1934) and Theodore Roscoe's I'll Grind Their Bones (1936), but those written between 1939-45 remain the most fascinating. More than those prescient curiosities or the historical reconstructions. The WWII era detective story can easily fill a large, doubly stacked bookcase and half of them are still waiting to be rediscovered. So always keep an eye out for copies or reprints.

I don't recall who, when or where Murder, M.D. (1943) by "Miles Burton" was recommended to me as a noteworthy wartime village mystery. But whoever it was that recommended the book, thank you!

Miles Burton is one of the pseudonyms of the detective story's plot engineer, John Street, who's best known penname is "John Rhode" from his prolific Dr. Lancelot Priestley series. Street belongs to the once unfairly maligned, so-called "humdrum" school prioritizing plotting, particularly technical plots centering on murder methods, impossible crimes and unbreakable alibis, over characterization – appealing to puzzle fiends who want a tricky problem to pick apart. So even among us Golden Age detective fans, not everyone's a fan of Street's purely technical, plot-driven and cleverly contrived mysteries. Whatever its title might suggest, Murder, M.D. is a surprisingly Crime Queenish village mystery focusing more on the characters and storytelling than picking apart an ingeniously horrifying method for murder. The plot is still one of his best!

The backdrop of Murder, M.D. is the now sparsely populated village of Exton Forcett, "so many had left to serve in various capacities elsewhere," which also had to say goodbye to their popular village physician. When the war broke out, Dr. St. John Cecil joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and currently serves in the Middle East. Dr. Cecil arranged for Dr. Kurt Wiegler, a naturalized Austrian, to act as his locum, but the highly opinionated Dr. Wiegler is "constitutionally incapable of keeping his nose out of trouble and other people's affairs." Always threatening "to expose people" or "to inflict some unpleasantness upon them," openly stating he believes ninety percent of the villages suffer from "congenital idiocy" with the other ten percent being "deliberate criminals." So, despite being better than Dr. Cecil, his locum had made himself immensely unpopular as many villagers preferred to go the doctors in the neighboring villages.

Nobody is saddened when Dr. Wiegler's body is discovered on top of a boulder at the bottom of a gravel pit in Gallows Wood. Dr. Wiegler was a passionate birdwatcher and everyone at the scene guessed he had stumbled over the edge, while looking through his binoculars and plunged to his death. The coroner and jury at the inquest agreed with an accidental verdict.

Captain Desmond Merrion, one of the chiefs of the Naval Intelligence, is in the village on a short leave and confides to his host, Sir Mark Corringham, his believe Dr. Wiegler "was, in fact, deliberately murdered" – a fact deduced "on the evidence of a coat button and a couple of pine needles." However, they're more than happy to let sleeping dogs lie and life goes on the village as usual. Only notable things to happen over the following months, besides the war, are the arrivals of the surprising new locum and an unexpected, but very pleased, heir of the late locum. During this time, the new locum begins to suspect everyone in the village knew Dr. Wiegler had been killed, but nobody seemed interested in bringing his killer to justice. That sets up the second murder.

I think this second murder is one of the things distinguishing Murder, M.D. as a first-rate Golden Age detective story, because the second murder is not merely a plot-device to reignite interest during the second-half of the book. This second murder is unexpected and shocking with actual weight behind it. While the first murder was a relief to the village, the second murder is not nor is it going to be without consequences. Desmond Merrion is called back by Sir Mark to help out Inspector Arnold in weeding out the murderer. A problem requiring to timetable and map out everyone's movement, because the place where the body was found divides the suspects between the Cecils and the rest. Interestingly, they use blackout time to help piece together the victim's final steps ("however light it may be outside, the blackout has to go up at the time ordained"). So good, old-fashioned and solid detective work. But where Street really exceeded himself is the handling of the solution with a surprisingly well-hidden murderer.

Whether writing as John Rhode, Miles Burton or Cecil Waye, Street was always more interested in the how than who or why. So even in his best detective novels, the murderers and motives tend to be obvious (e.g. The Bloody Tower, 1938). Murder, M.D. is the opposite in what you would expect to the point that it almost seems deliberate. The story and plot has done away with what can be deemed his usual strengths to work and focus on what's generally considered to be greatest weaknesses: characterization, a well-hidden murderer and a good, not so obvious motive. Street delivered on the last two like he was Agatha Christie or Christianna Brand! Impressively, (SPOILER/ROT13) gur zheqrere fubhyq unir orra qbhoyl boivbhf, orpnhfr gung glcr bs punenpgre nyjnlf vaivgrf fhfcvpvba. Nal jevgre pnfgvat n punenpgre yvxr gung va gur ebyr bs zheqrere vf tvivat gurzfryirf n unaqvpnc (trg vg?) sebz gur fgneg. Vg jnfa'g fb boivbhf urer!

The finishing touch is the original, fairly clued motive complemented by Merrion's memorable exposure of the murderer cementing Murder, M.D. as a classic of the Golden Age village mystery and simply Street's very best detective novel read to date. Murder, M.D. deserves to be reprinted as it would be right at home in the British Library Crime Classic series. Until then, I recommend you pick up a copy, if one happens to come your way.