The Ring of Innocent (1952) by Brian Flynn

Brian Flynn's The Ring of Innocent (1952), the fortieth title in the Anthony Bathurst series, begins with Martin Scudamore going to see a flick and getting the good, old-fashioned cinema experience – two men sitting behind him talking. The conversation he overhears raises an eyebrow.

Scudamore heard the two men, "the big fellow" and "the little bloke," talk about four rings and how "the colours were confirmed, too" ("green, blue, red and yellow"). Several names are mentioned and a muttered comment about proving somebody's innocence, but what unsettled Scudamore was hearing the big fellow saying he was ready to remove a human obstacle ("...if Lovelace stands in my way I'll slit his throat") in combination with a place called Loveridge. Scudamore happens to be friends with someone named Lovelace who lives in Loveridge. So he goes with this story to Helen Repton, of Scotland Yard, who in turns brings him to Anthony Bathurst.

Anthony Bathurst listens to the story and suspects trouble is afoot, which is why he immediately wants to go the Lovelace's home, Cherry Fair, but they arrived too late. They're greeted by a police sergeant telling them that Lovelace "was set upon last night very savagely," found dying from head wound in the library, moved to the local hospital – where he died that morning. Before dying, the doctors heard Lovelace saying the words innocent or innocence and teaspoon. Bathurst asks the sergeant to contact Chief Detective-Inspector MacMorran, of the Yard, and simply takes charge of the investigation. However, this is not a simple case of interrogating suspects and witnesses, digging for motives and checking alibis. Simply because there really aren't any at first. Bathurst has to find them first by playing psycho-analyst, of sorts.

What can be called clues, or semi-clues, comprise of little more than the whispered conversation overheard in the cinema, Lovelace's cryptic dying message and the cryptic doodles discovered on his blotting pad. So the opening part of the investigation is more in the spirit of word association games and rebus puzzles. Following the possible answers to those word-and picture puzzles leads Bathurst to a respectable antique store, a funeral parlor and the home of a writer who published a book on the long, storied history of Lovelace's twelfth century house. And a second body. This is, of course, only a small selection of leads, dead ends and other complications Bathurst and MacMorran have to clear up along the way towards the solution. So, as to be expected from Flynn, The Ring of Innocent is a detective story that doesn't always move along traditional lines.

I think that speaks very well for Flynn as a detective novelist. Even after a quarter of a century and forty books, Flynn refused to phone it in and kept trying to give his readers something worth their time and money. Flynn was a mystery writer who wanted to surprise his readers in more ways than one, which is way going through his body of work is like a tour of the early 20th century detective-and thriller story – going from whodunits and impossible crimes to courtroom dramas and serial killers. Or, like here, simply finding a different route to tell a detective story. On the downside, it can make his work a little uneven at times. The Ring of Innocent is at its best in its opening and closing parts with the middle portion sometimes lacking some urgency, but, on a whole, a solid, late-period entry in the series.