Tim MacNab Seeks a Story (1937) by Marten Toonder

The concept of "lost media" is something of an obsession on parts of the internet and touched upon the subject myself, "Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction That Have Been Lost to History," covering everything from Jacques Futrelle going down with the Titanic to the lost collaboration between John Dickson Carr and J.B. Priestley – between a maddening number of unpublished, presumably destroyed manuscripts. Most famously Hake Talbot's third Rogan Kincaid novel The Affair of the Half-Witness and Joseph Commings' four novel-length Senator Brooks U. Banner mysteries. So the detective story, especially the classics, has had its fair share of lost media as well as number of recently recovered novels and short stories from the likes of Christianna Brand, E.C.R. Lorac and Anthony Berkeley.

There has even been a recovered, previously unpublished, detective novel here in the Netherlands from the hands of one of the most celebrated Dutch comic book artists, Marten Toonder.

Marten Toonder created the beloved characters Tom Poes and Olivier B. Bommel, Tom Puss and Oliver B. Bumble in English, who appeared in the long-running Tom Poes series. A series praised for enriching the Dutch language with new words and playful phrases, which reportedly made Toonder's work tricky to translate into different languages, als je begrijpt wat ik bedoel. Toonder died, aged 93, in 2005. During his centenary, seven years later, it was revealed a loose-leaf, typescript manuscript was discovered in the Toonder archive of a never before published detective novel, Tim MacNab zoekt copy (Tim MacNab Seeks a Story) – originally written in 1937. It's unclear why the manuscript was shelved, but finally appeared in a limited print run of 1500 copies when publisher De Bezige Bij distributed the manuscript, "curiosum in facsimile," as a 2013 New Year's gift. Tim MacNab Seeks a Story received a proper publication in 2017, under the slightly modernized title Tim MacNab zoekt kopij, which came with a foreword from Dutch thriller author Tomas Ross ("a unique gem") and afterword from Toonder's grandson, Irwin M. Toonder.

I had heard of it before and jotted it down for future reference, but forgot all about it until receiving the gift wrapped facsimile edition last December. If you want to get the real feeling of reading a lost detective story, the facsimile of a typescript complete with handwriting corrections gets that job done. On the downside, the first three chapters have a lot of faded, hard to read pages of text, which fortunately improved to make it as readable as intended. How does it stack up as a detective story written during the Golden Age's golden window, the years 1935 to 1937? Let's dive in and find out!

Tim MacNab Seeks a Story is narrated by Captain Sixma, of the S.S. Wega, ferrying a cargo of "characters" from Rotterdam to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. There's the jovial, roving reporter from Chicago, Tim MacNab, who takes on the duties of shipboard sleuth. Otto Braun, a German stockbroker, gladly taking on the role of murderable murderee. Further more, there are William Jones, a fat cat from London, Juanita Lloret, a dancer from Vienna, Father Dominicus, a missionary from South Africa, Dr. Johan van der Steen, a sea sick botanist, Mrs. Wijers, a Dutch invalided widow and her private nurse, Tilly van Doorne. Finally, Gustav and Lotte Herchel from Zurich, Switzerland. So a nice, neatly packed cast of characters for an intimate shipboard mystery with Otto Braun setting himself as prospective victim. Not long after lifting anchor, Braun is shot through the head in his cabin while making notes in his diary.

Tim MacNab rises to the occasion, positioning himself as the detective, but Captain Sixma is a responsible, sensible down-to-earth Dutchman – who sees trouble ahead. Reasoning "a person who has committed one murder can very easily commit a second one." That fatal failure would be his responsibility as captain. Regrettably, Captain Sixma's prediction comes true when a second person is killed leaving MacNab and Captain Sixma to chase a murderer who left two bodies behind and littered the ship with clues and red herrings. Like the torn pages from a diary, a scrap of old newspaper, a rosary bead, a whiff of perfume, a dying message and an astonishing lack of alibis.

This all makes for a well-paced, entertaining enough whodunit and I'm sure you can breeze through the 2017 edition (i.e. finished product) within an hour or two, which is Tim MacNab Seeks a Story greatest strength as a story and greatest weakness as a detective story. Technically, the plot holds together well enough, but the plot is very prosaic and unimaginative. When the murderer was revealed, my response was, "oh, that fits, I guess." I would have been more impressed had it been written in 1927, because its brief experiments with false-solutions and a dying message would have made it somewhat prescient en route to the 1930s. What's more, once everything was revealed, all I could see was a better alternative solution than the one presented.

I still very much enjoyed reading Tim MacNab Seeks a Story, but that doesn't take away it's pretty basic and average for a 1930s detective novel. I genuinely wish it had been better than it turned out to be, because all my attempts to find another good, classic Dutch detective author like Cor Docter or Ton Vervoort has been less than inspiring. So, historically, Tim MacNab Seeks a Story is an interesting curiosity for sure, but not very satisfying as a detective story originally written in 1937. The reader has been warned.

Anyone interested in me re-reviewing Docter's trio of Daan Vissering mysteries or do you want to stubbornly go on, until finding something really good again? Let me know below.

Note for the curious: in case your curious about that better, more satisfying alternative solution (MILD SPOILERS/ROT13): fb gur svefg ivpgvz jnf gur hacyrnfnag Bggb Oenha jub jnf abg nobir n fcbg oynpxznvy, juvyr gur frpbaq ivpgvz vf Thfgni Urepury. Gung bcraf gur qbbe gb gur rgreany gevnatyr. Ybggr Urepury unf n frperg ybire naq vf orvat oynpxznvyrq ol Oenha. Fb gurl qrpvqr gb xvyy gjb oveqf jvgu bar fgbar ol xvyyvat obgu ure uhfonaq naq gurve oynpxznvyre qhevat gur gevc, juvpu jbhyq serr gurz hc va zber guna bar jnl. Lbh pna onfvpnyyl cvpx rirelbar nf ure frperg ybire/pb-zheqrere qrcraqvat jung xvaq bs fhecevfr lbh jnag gb tb sbe. Vqrnyyl, vg fubhyq or rvgure gur pncgnva (haeryvnoyr aneengbe) be gur ercbegre uvzfrys, ohg bar bs gur perj zrzoref jub'f nyjnlf va gur onpxtebhaq jbhyq nyfb jbex. Lrf, vg'f abg terng cybggvat vs lbh pna fybg nal ahzore bs punenpgref vagb gur ebyr bs zheqrere, ohg urer vg pbhyq unir jbexrq.

After typing that out, I realized Tim MacNab Seeks a Story is Deck Dorval's Een jacht vaart uit (A Yacht Sets Sail, 1947) all over again. I'll try to pick something substantially better next. I have something on the pile that'll do the trick. A locked room-trick!