The Case of the Three Lost Letters (1954) by Christopher Bush

I enjoyed Christopher Bush's The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939) so much, I decided to take down another title in the series, The Case of the Three Lost Letters (1954), which Bush wrote during a time when "fashions in mystery fiction were decidedly afoot" as "authors increasingly turned to sensationalistic tales" – like international espionage, psychological suspense and hardboiled action. Bush adapted to the changing winds by transforming his series-character, Ludovic Travers, from an unofficial associate of Scotland Yard in the 1930s to a genteel private inquiry agent in the 1940s. And, by the time the fifties rolled around, Travers owned a controlling interest in the Broad Street Agency. 

Travers began to resemble "an American private investigator rather than the gentleman amateur detective," but elements of the conventional British mystery remained. Although the baroque-style, elaborate plots and tricky, minutely-timed alibis had either been toned down considerably or scrapped altogether. Travers had become a working class, licensed detective who now had to contend with the "implied superiority and the faint suggestion" from polite society his daytime job "is just a bit beyond the pale." But, even with the plots becoming less complicated, the series produced soundly-structured detective novels like The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel (1952) and The Case of the Flowery Corpse (1956). 

The Case of the Three Lost Letters was recommended to me at one point or another as a perfect fusion of the old-fashioned, 1930s British whodunit and the post-war private eye novel. I have to agree as it turned out to be one of the better Bush novels from this period in the series.

Ludovic Travers is summoned to the house of Henry Baldlow, The Croft in Seahurst, who wrote to the Broad Street Detective Agency to send down a responsible member of the firm. Travers went down himself and finds a man suffering from emphysema, which is why he's ready to move to South Africa in about a fortnight's time, but needs a live-in bodyguard until then. Baldlow had found God through the Oxford Movement, or Moral Re-armament, which made him regard money as the root of all evil and the disposal of his personal fortune "a sacred trust" – certain possible heirs had already been subjected to "guarded enquiries." But he expects to do certain unpleasant things that might provoke an equally unpleasant reaction. So asks Travers to provide him with a bodyguard to act as a companion during those two weeks. Travers had "rarely been so distrustful of a client," disliking Baldlow's "almost nauseating smugness" and "parade of religion," but drew up a pretty stiff contract that put no onus, whatsoever, on the agency. This is how Patrick Nordon came to The Croft as a companion/bodyguard and his written reports fills half of the second chapter. But trouble was already brewing.

One of Travers' freelance operatives, Luke Layman, whose car pitched over a cliff about eight miles west of Seahurst and drowned in the submerged car. There was an empty, quarter bottle of Scotch in the car with his prints on it and "he died with some of it in his belly," but was it really open and shut case of accidental death? What happened with Layman's diary book that he used to keep a record of his jobs? Travers soon has something else on his mind as Grainger, the Seahurst Chief Constable, asks Travers what he would do if had the idea a client was about to commit felony. Suspecting the Chief Constable was referring to Baldlow, Travers decided to pay his client a visit and bumps into Nordon who had been sent out by Baldlow to buy a Last Will and Testament form. Nordon suspects it has something to do with three visitors expected to drop by that day, but, when they arrive at The Croft, the housekeeper finds Baldlow's body in the upstairs snuggery. Smothered to death with a pillow! And that's when the visitors begin to arrive.

First one to arrive is Baldlow's niece, Mrs. Jane Howell, followed by her brother, Charles Tinley. The last visitor is the dead man's stepbrother, Francis Lorde. They all received a letter from Baldlow, asking them to come see him "most urgently," but none of the three knew the other two received a similar letter nor can they produce the letters in question, which they threw away or destroyed as unimportant – even when it's quite obvious the letters had disturbed them. And who's Maurice, or Morris, who Baldlow told over the telephone (overheard by Nordon) not to come to the house? Travers has to root around the cupboards of the three visitors and the people around them to find out what skeletons Baldlow had gotten a hold of, which has sidetracks into the jewelry business, the theater world and the previously mentioned Moral Re-armament Movement.

Travers' investigation shows a lot had changed since his days as a bright-eyed, crossword puzzle obsessed amateur detective in the '20s and '30s with his work sometimes getting very seedy. For example, Chapter IX ("Temptation Flat") has Travers reluctantly getting snug and messy ("with lipstick and the stickiness of the Benedictine") with a femme fatale. Travers has something to explain back home (“blonde hairs, probably, that had been on my overcoat”) to his wife, Bernice. Another modern tendency found in these later novels is showing a bit more of the person behind the detective. Travers gives his religious views to Baldlow in the opening chapter (believing in God "to the extent that I can't credit the Universe as being self-made") and reflects later on in the story about the skeleton stuffed away in his own cupboard ("an affair that makes me go hot and cold at a distance of almost thirty years and about which I've never breathed a word to Bernice"). You're unlikely to find these candid snapshots in any of the pre-war Travers novels. And then there's the dark, devastating, but oh so effective ending, that was very much in tune with the changing times.

Regardless of the modern, post-war tune, The Case of the Three Lost Letters is a pure, undiluted whodunit with all the clues and red herrings in place, but, more importantly, the plot is structured around an idea that feels as fresh as it's original – even in 2022! A good enough idea that it didn't need the extra complication of cast-iron alibis or fooling around with identities. There is, however, a small caveat: The Case of the Three Lost Letters could have been superb instead of merely excellent had Bush not made one mistake. Bush should have (ROT13) vagebqhprq gur zheqrere nf abguvat zber guna n anzr/cbfvgvba jvgu uvf onpxtebhaq orvat svyyrq va nsgre gur zheqre vf qvfpbirerq. Vs jbhyq zber yvxryl unir chyyrq gur zheqrere va gur ernqre'f cflpubybtvpny oyvaq fcbg. Abj gur ernqre vf tvira gbb zhpu vasbezngvba sebz gur fgneg naq gung znqr na bgurejvfr irel jryy uvqqra zheqrere ybbx irel fhfcvpvbhf. I learned these dirty tricks from Uncle John and Aunt Agatha. :)

So, if you pay close enough attention, you can put all the pieces together and reach the correct solution long before Travers figures it out. Normally, I can take satisfaction in solving a detective story that played completely fair with the reader, but the ending and how the case was resolved made me wish Bush had succeeded in fooling me. The ending is so much better when it can take you by surprise. Something that would have been possible had it not been for that one mistake. Nevertheless, The Case of the Three Lost Letters has a very real shot of making it to my top 10 favorite Bush novels. It's definitely one of my favorites from this period in the series.

The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939) by Christopher Bush

Last year, I was distracted away from Christopher Bush by the unending avalanche of reprints and translations, digging around the remnants of the Dutch detective genre and hunting for obscure, long out-of-print (locked room) mystery novels – as well as revisiting some old favorites. This left very little room for two of my favorite detectives, Ludovic Travers and George Wharton, who still got to shine in The Case of the Unfortunate Village (1932) and The Case of the Curious Client (1947). But my other two reads, The Case of the Climbing Rat (1940) and The Case of the Seven Bells (1949), were somewhat poor compared to the best the series has to offer. Fortunately, I had a promising, highly praised title tucked away for just such an occasion. 

The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939) is the twentieth entry in the Ludovic Travers series, "a classic village mystery," which used to be one of the scarcer titles until Dean Street Press reissued it in 2018. John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, got hold of copy back in 2012 and thought it was one of Bush's "more engrossing efforts" with Travers talent to bust faked alibis wide open "put to impressive use." There's an entire village teeming with alibis, faked and real, which he has to separate to find expose "a very cunning murderer."

The Case of the Green Felt Hat brings a honeymooning Ludovic and Bernice Travers, who met and fell in love in The Case of the Leaning Man (1938), to the quiet, agricultural town of Edensthorpe where a friend of Bernice had lent them a house – maid and gardener included. There they planned to spend the first-half of their honeymoon in anonymity without getting recognized as the well-known amateur detective and the retired classical dancer. But, when they drive through the nearby village of Pettistone, Travers recognizes the newly arrived owner of Gables as a recently released swindler, Hanley Brewse. Travers gave evidence at his trial and helped convict both him and his accomplish, Merrick Clarke, who died six months before his two years were up. Brewse served his time and Travers is of the opinion that even "a slippery rascal," like Brewse, has to live somewhere. But he does inform the Chief Constable, Colonel Brian Feen, who knows "no end of Pettistone people came a cropper when Brewse went smash."

Norman Quench, the Pettistone vicar, lost practically everything and his son, Bob Quench, had to come home from Oxford and loaf round till he got a job at the local garage. Charles Ammony, owner of the village garage and general stores, had thrust himself into the financial shenanigans and got "badly bitten for his pains," which made him "like a man demented" as he shrieked and raved about his lost money. Mr. Strongman got out in time, but his wife lost all her own money and she now has to go cap in hand to her husband "every time she wants a fiver," which made her very embittered about it all. Anthony Guff-Wimble, one of the local pillars and acting secretary of the Pettistone golf club, had has prestige damaged as many the disastrous investments were made on his recommendation as a sleeping partner in a firm of stockbrokers. Guff-Wimble is very indigent when he learns Brewse has settled down in Pettistone and calls together a counsel of war with the people who lost money and other villagers. Such as Pernaby, whose niece, Molly Pernaby, is practically engaged to Bob Quench and the son of the Strongmans, Gordon, who's home on leave from the Sudan. Tarring and feathering was casually mentioned during this meeting, which probably would have been the best solution considering what happens next.

There's a wooden, flimsy shed on a back road to the village, where manure is stored, is blazing and the body of Brewse was dragged from underneath the heap of manure. Brewse had been shot and the manure had protected the body from the licking flames, but why bury a body in a protective layer of dung and then set it on fire? That same day, they discover Brewse house had been vandalized. The whole end of the house that faced the road had been painted with a mock advertisement: "THE GABLES CINEMA (Hanley Brewse, proprietor) NOW SHOWING CONVICT 99." Some of the villagers definitely took measures against Brewse's presence, but who did what and when takes a bit of detective work to figure out.

Travers naturally feels guilty about having to play detective on his honeymoon, but Bernice wants him to help Colonel Feen find the murderer and even does some off-page detective work as talks and plays golf with the women of the village – which gives her access to a wealth of village gossip. A holidaying Superintendent George Wharton joins them halfway through the story, posing as Mr. Higgins, whose "ripe and fruity personality" always lights up a story when coming into contact with Travers. So while Travers pretends to be "an ordinary citizen and a golfer on holiday," Wharton accompanies Colonel Feen on the official side of the investigation. This is why I loved that brief moment in which Sergeant Reeper asks Travers "who's this Mr. Higgins?" and gets the answer "one of those old fogies who fancies himself as a detective." Travers and Wharton are the best!

Their investigation naturally focuses on alibis and Travers, "one of the best alibi breakers," has his work cutout as nearly everyone appears to have an alibi, some more looking more convincing than others, but appearances can be deceiving. And there are other factors complicating the question of alibis even further. Firstly, Travers has to pick at a pair of alibis for each individual suspect. An afternoon alibi for the shooting and an evening alibi for moving the body. Secondly, a witness claimed to have seen the bearded Brewse with his green felt hat walking down the road to Edensthorpe when, according to the medical evidence, he was a dead as a door nail. The time of death was very thoroughly established through "rigor mortis, state of wound, and stomach content."

So that gives this "a nice, quiet, gentleman's murder" a clearly defined window of time to toy around in with alibis. A scope Bush fully exploited to not only test the numerous alibis, but also explore the human element behind those alibis as being guilty of murder is not the only reason to fabricate one. This also gives room to a few false-solutions, or suggestions, of which one really stood out. Travers, "always ready with a theory," suggests a trick how a broken down car on the side of the road can be used to make it appear as if the murderer had been anchored to that location at the time of the murder. Bush should have put that idea to use in another novel. A great alibi-trick that could have carried an entire plot by itself. Only (very minor) disappointment is that the tenth chapter, entitled "Travers on Alibis," didn't include an alibi-lecture. I keep expecting one to turn up in this series ever since it was teased in The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936).

But, while there are alibis aplenty, The Case of the Green Felt Hat is, first and foremost, a pure Golden Age whodunit. A whodunit with enough twist, turns and complications to keep the most seasoned armchair detective on their toes, but never in a forced, or unnatural, way. Like John Norris said in his review, "nothing is superfluous here, everything has a purpose." This is all the more impressive considering the leisurely, almost holiday-like atmosphere. A detective-on-holiday, or honeymoon in this case, is too often used as an excuse to slacken the reigns over the plot. Bush kept things unhurried and focused without feeling the need to spice up the story with an additional body. Bush was a craftsman and The Case of the Green Felt Hat a marvelous display of his craftsmanship that can stand with the best the series has to offer like the previously mentioned The Case of the Missing Minutes or the WWII home front trilogy. Warmly recommended! 

A note for the curious: Bush reworked The Case of the Green Felt Hat into a short story, "Murder at Christmas" (1951), which you can find Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries (2016).

The Case of the Seven Bells (1949) by Christopher Bush

The Case of the Seven Bells (1949) is Christopher Bush's 35th novel starring his two series-detectives, Ludovic Travers and Superintendent George Wharton, which begins with giving the reader "a first-class and essential clue" to help them figure out why the murderer was caught. A murderer who was "clever enough for anything and the planning was perfect," but the whole scheme collapsed and the reason why it failed is that the weather was "remarkably fine" on the day the case began – while "the next few days were much cooler" and "generally wet." I love it when Bush hands out these so-called "starter clues" and one of the things that endeared him to me. 

The Case of the Seven Bells opens with Ludovic Travers hanging around the office of Bill Ellice's Detective Agency, in Broad Street, when his receptionist/secretary announced a possibly client. A nervous woman, named Maudie Brown, who has a peculiar story to tell.

Maudie Brown is employed as a barmaid at one of those typically English public houses, the Seven Bells, but, every now and then, she would slip into Porelli's Café before the bar opened – to enjoy "a quick coffee and what she called a change of air." Last time she enjoyed coffee with biscuits, Maudie overheard two men "planning some sort of robbery" at "some place or other called The Grange." She described them as "a couple of flash boys or spivs," but, whoever they were, they noticed Maudie. And they followed her back to the Seven Bells. One of them tells her politely what happened to another woman who blabbed to the police "about something she'd heard," while playing menacingly with a razor blade. Ellice promises to see if he could do anything to help her, but he has a lot to discuss with Travers the moment the door closes.

There are "plenty of smart boys" in the Seven Bells area, but, when Travers goes to take a look himself, it seemed incredible that there could be such things "as razor-slashings, and spivs who laid plains in eating-houses, and frightened barmaids." Why was Maudie Brown all dolled up on her day off? Why did she use an accommodation address and where did she sleep? Not much else can be done until Travers receives an early morning phone call from Superintendent George Wharton. Summoning him to the scene of a murder in Carr's Hill.

Mrs. Wyster was a celebrated and famous film actress, "only real woman genius the English screen has produced," who was known to the world as Aubrey Grange and she was taking a rest at a small bungalow, The Croft. Practically nobody knew she was staying there. Now she lay dead, "shot at close range and no gun," in the hallway passage of the bungalow with the telephone line cut and the place ransacked. Travers sees an obvious link between the eating-house plot and the murder whereas Wharton is very dismissive of the idea, which brings us to the highlight of the story.

I mentioned in previous reviews that nobody from Bush's time nailed the dynamic between the amateur detective and official policeman quite like he did.

Travers mentioned in earlier novels he has the crossword kind of mind that easily lends itself to grand theorizing according to the Socratic method, "put up questions and suggest answers," which prove to be correct once in three times – that's not a bad average. But the much more theatrical and maneuverable Wharton habitually pooh-poohs him and his fanciful theories. So if one of his theories turns out to be wrong, Wharton has one more failure to bring up in future arguments, but it suddenly becomes "our theory" when it turns out well or simply calls it his idea if it's an absolute winner. But don't think Wharton is simply another carbon copy of Lestrade. More than once, Wharton has upstaged Travers by solving the case before he does.

I think it makes them possibly unique as Golden Age detective-characters and them butting heads over a particular tricky problem, in their own characteristic way, is usually one of the highlights of any Christopher Bush mystery. The Case of the Seven Bells is no exception.

Wharton believe it more likely Maudie overheard a gang of house-breakers, not spivs, because "black market stuff's their specialty." Spivs don't do this sort of job or shoot to intentionally kill, but a gang of house-breakers is not very likely either. They must have known Grange was living there and when she would be home. So why shoot instead of tying and gagging her? A burglar shooting his way out of tight corner is "rare enough." Not to mention a hanging matter. So why did it happen here? There are other strange complications. Such as a neighbor hearing the whimper of a baby on the night of the murder and their prized witness, Maudie Brown, has vanished from the face of the earth. 

The Case of the Seven Bells had all the ingredients to make a densely-plotted, first-class Ludovic Travers and George Wharton mystery, but the plot regrettably is one of the most transparent, see-through in the entire series. Bush badly showed his hand here as he littered the opening chapters with alarm bells and red flags. You're unlikely to immediately catch on what, exactly, is happening, but enough to make you suspicious of certain things and be on your guard, which then goes on to spell out the solution in succeeding chapters – effectively turning the "starter clue" into a red herring of sorts. Something that could have worked had all those other clues, hints and tell-tale signs not been so blatantly obvious.

Technically, The Case of the Seven Bells is sound enough with an ambitious idea as the foundation stone of its plot and story. I half-suspect Bush intended the book to be the torchbearer of the (ROT13) snyfr vqragvgvrf trope as he shoved the question of alibis to the background, which the easily spotted solution and paper-thin characterization prevented. So only recommendable to fans of the series.

The Case of the Climbing Rat (1940) by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush's The Case of the Climbing Rat (1940) is the 22nd novel in the Ludovic Travers series, written and published 1926 and 1968, which formed with The Case of the Flying Donkey (1939) a two-book arc and "a heartfelt tribute" to the French nation – a nation that would soon be invaded and occupied. Curt Evans noted in his introduction that the "glimpses of a peacetime world" in these Tour de Frances of Bush brought back "better and far less jaded days" when "death could still be treated as a game." This is true enough in spirit. But they also standout as unconventional in plotting and storytelling that makes them hard to recommend to anyone who isn't already a fan of the series. Something that's even more true of The Case of the Climbing Rat than The Case of the Flying Donkey. 

The Case of the Climbing Rat begins interesting with two, apparently unrelated, problems with one of them sending Ludovic Travers to France to confront the black sheep of the family.

Gustave Rionne is a disgraced Harley Street surgeon and the uncle of his wife, Bernice, who once made a name as "the very first plastic surgeons who really did anything worth while," but an abortion and a botched skin-grafting operation got him stricken off the list. Some of these were done while practicing under a false name, which lead to his expulsion from Luxembourg and Switzerland. Rionne went, "or escaped," to France where lived on a small pension bequeathed by Bernice's late Aunt Emily, but she warned Bernice that Rionne might begin pestering her for money, which is exactly what has happened and the second letter was horrible – raking up things and "hinting at making trouble." Travers is travels to Hótel de Sud, Carliens, to have a word or two with Uncle Gustave.

The second problem is of an entirely different magnitude: Inspector Laurin Gallois, of the Sûreté, receives an anonymous phone call telling him that the reports Armand Bariche's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Armand Bariche was, or is, a notorious slippery serial killer and not even the grisly career of Henri Landru was as "horrifying than that of Bariche." A serial killer who, unlike Landru, picked his victims from "a superior class" whose scandal-shy relatives would do everything to avoid publicity, which is why the police believe most of his victims were still unknown. Gallois believes there are likely many people "who guessed that some daughter or female relative had been a Bariche victim," but would never dare risk "scandal in their own localities." Everything the police knew about Bariche came out when he supposedly died in a fire together with his last victim. So all Galois knew about the serial killer came from words on paper and secondhand impressions, but he always believed he was still alive. And here he finally had a potential lead.

So two very different, unconnected problem concerning a pesky relative who spends too much money and the potential presence of an active serial killer in the South of France, but Gallois and Travers cross paths when Rionne is stabbed to death in a public lavatory. You can see the hardboiled influence creeping into Bush's writing with this murder, because I don't remember another detective novel from this period in which someone was murdered in a public lavatory while in "the act of urinating." Not exactly the libraries or private studies commonly associated with the classic detective story.

Anyway, there's a second murder of a Swiss national, Georges Letoque, who was shot and killed at the villa he rented in the Rue des Pins, which was preceded by a suspicious-looking car accident involving Gallois' secretary and right-hand man, Charles Rabaud – who was on his way to meet the anonymous informant. But the story becomes a little muddled and slower once everything has been setup. Only to become remarkably clearer in the final chapter. 

The Case of the Climbing Rat is more of a rambling shaggy dog story than a normal, conventionally structured detective story with clues and suspects to examine. It more about who's exactly who or what their part in the story really is with the only constant being the possible presence of Bariche and three masked trapeze artists rumored to be either German anti-Nazis or relatives of the late Tsar. What's exactly the role of their little small white rat who, "brave as a lion," climbed the rope to the top of the tent to fly through the air with trapeze artist? Why did it refuse to climb the rope one night and died shortly after? Regrettably, The Case of the Climbing Rat is one of those novels where having France as a setting is an excuse to slacken the pace and loosen the plotting (e.g. E.R. Punshon's Murder Abroad, 1939). It's not until the last chapter that most of the loose, fuzzy plot-threads are pulled tight to reveal that there was something good and clever hidden underneath it all. Such as one of Bush's patent alibi-tricks, but some structure and substance to the middle portion would have been bigger benefit to the overall plot than a surprisingly clear and stronger ending closing an otherwise pretty muddled detective yarn.

So, yeah, The Case of the Climbing Rat is, plot-wise, not a highlight of the series and can only be recommended to readers who are already fans of Bush and Travers, but they'll be able to appreciate the dynamic between Travers and Gallois – who's a very different kind of foil than Superintendent Wharton. While they have mutual admiration and respect, there's a hint of rival-detectives between them. A plot-device not always appreciated by Western mystery writers, but Bush excellently made us of it here to give the story a good and solid ending.

If you're new to Bush and not prejudiced against cherry picking, I recommend you begin with The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936) or his home front trilogy, The Case of the Murdered Major (1941), The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel (1942) and The Case of the Fighting Soldier (1942). You can also go for some old-fashioned, Golden Age baroque with Dead Man Twice (1930) and Dancing Death (1931) or his John Dickson Carr-style impossible crime novel, The Case of the Chinese Gong (1935). I also liked Cut Throat (1932), but practically everyone disagrees with me on that one.

The Case of the Unfortunate Village (1932) by Christopher Bush

Three-and-a-half years ago, Dean Street Press began the long overdue process of bringing all of Christopher Bush's sixty-some detective novels back into a print. A mystery writer who was to the unbreakable alibi what John Dickson Carr was to the impossible crime, as demonstrated in Cut Throat (1932) and The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936), which gave me a whole new appreciation for ingeniously thought out, well executed alibi-tricks – quickly making Bush one of my favorite mystery writers. Bush had more to offer than merely a collection of tricky alibis. 

Bush had a knack for building complicated, maze-like plots out of double murders committed in close proximity, of time or place, in which he was practically alone. J.J. Connington is the only one who comes to mind who specialized in the kind of plots that can be found in Bush's Dead Man Twice (1930), The Case of the Bonfire Body (1936) and The Case of the Tudor Queen (1938) (c.f. Connington's The Case with Nine Solutions, 1928). So he got a lot mileage out of that plot device, but what turned these plot-technical marvels into gold are his series-detectives, Ludovic Travers and Superintendent George "The General" Wharton, who played off each other perfectly. And you can never tell who'll reach the solution first. 

So the 1930s period of the series comes highly recommended to everyone who prefers the simon-pure jigsaw-puzzle detective story, but the wartime years brought a chance to the series and Bush's home front trilogy, The Case of the Murdered Major (1941), The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel (1942) and The Case of the Fighting Soldier (1942), signaled a huge shift – gradually adopting the trappings of the American hardboiled school. The plotting became less baroque and Travers, who became the narrator during the home front trilogy, turned into a genteel private investigator. A transformation that was completed when the 1950s rolled around and the post-war malaise in Britain offered a perfect backdrop for the new tone of the series (e.g. The Case of the Fourth Detective, 1951).

Nevertheless, while not every novel from this period is as good as his 1930s novels, there are still some minor gems to be found. Such as The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel (1952) and The Case of the Flowery Corpse (1956), but my preference goes to his elaborate, baroque-style 1930s novels. I've wanted to return to that period in the series for some time now and to one title in particular. 

The Case of the Unfortunate Village (1932) is the eighth novel in the Ludovic Travers series and, no matter the period, one of Bush's most atypical mysteries. There's nothing showy or particular complicated about the plot. In fact, it's a surprisingly character-driven mystery centering on a series of incidents, personality changes and accidents that have befalling the village of Bableigh.

In this early novel, Travers is still a directors of Durangos Limited, a consulting and publicity firm, who takes "the fact that every question has two sides" as "an incentive to hunt for a third" and has found two outlets for his inquisitive nature – writing books and playing detective. Usually, he sticks his nose in official police business, but this time, Travers has to act as an amateur detective in its purest form as many of the characters aren't even aware an investigation is carried out. The peculiar problem requiring a discreet investigation is brought to him by an old school friend and local magistrate, Henry Dryden, who believes "something sinister or ominous" has descended on his village. Bableigh is really "a hamlet perched on top of a ridge" with a church, post office, tiny school, smattering of cottages and a very small arts colony. Everyone got along swimmingly, until recently, when personalities began to change and the atmosphere was poisoned.

Marian Crome is an ultra-impressionist painter whose "work underwent a sudden and curious change," which Dryden denounced as "utterly repulsive and even bestial." Ashley Mound is a sculptor who "developed into a very annoying kind of hermit" following the passing of his invalid wife. There are two middle-aged living companions, avid gardener Agnes Rose and potter Harriet Blunt, but the spinsters started quarreling and separated. Miss Rose has become unbearable to be around. Lyonel Parish is the vicar and used to be "quite a jolly fellow," but "his change was the worst of all." All of his natural cheerfulness was replaced with "a false and loathsome geniality." This sudden change that has come over the village is punctuated by the death of the impoverished squire, Tom Yeoman, who was found shot with his own hunting rifle. It was ruled an accident, but what happened to his dog?

Dryden doubted the accident explanation at the time, but didn't want to make trouble for the widow and her children, because a suicide verdict would have annulled Yeoman's life insurance.

So Ludovic Travers and John Franklin, head of the Detective Bureau of Durangos Limited, discreetly begin to poke around the village and find all kind of small mysteries that thicken the plot. Who planted the mass of forget-me-nots? Who buried and dug up the dead dog and disposed of it again in someone else's garden? Who tore up Miss Rose's garden? What happened to the clay sculpture of the devil that Travers saw through Mould's studio window? Why is everyone behaving out-of-character? And is there a possibility that there's a coven of witches and satanists in the village?

Since "the whole thing is unofficial," Travers and Franklin can do little more than talk to people, theorize and stirring the pot a little, but, while they're discreetly poking around, villagers begin to die right and left – ruled as either accidents (bicycle crash) or natural deaths (heart failure). You shouldn't expect too much of them, as howdunits, except for an attempted murder very late in the story, which has a clever trick. So the who-and how is not all that important and the former becomes fairly obvious before too long. What's important is the motive and how it dovetails with the bizarre, out-of-the-ordinary happenings in the village with the characters/psychology taking the front seat. This makes the story more like a Gladys Mitchell novel than an Agatha Christie mystery. You can best describe The Case of the Unfortunate Village as Christie Murder is Easy (1938) as perceived by Mitchell. Are you still with me, Jim? Don't close that tab! :)

A warning to the reader: one aspect of the murderer's motivation is not going to be popular with some readers, but rest assured, Bush refused to use it as an excuse to have weak, barely existent motivation to let a murderer go ham on everything with a pulse that moves (I'm looking at you, Philip MacDonald). Bush handled the motive as expertly as a cast-iron alibi and showered the reader with clues. The Case of the Unfortunate Village opens with a challenge to the reader telling the reader they have all the material at their disposal from the outset that the detectives will receive in driblets. And the end of Chapter 9 even gives the reader an opportunity to cheat! It's up to you to decide to accept, or decline, that shortcut. I decided to give it a pass, but the bravado to even dare offering it! I've never seen that done before. Not even Carr was that cheeky.

All in all, The Case of the Unfortunate Village is not as tightly or intricately plotted as Bush's alibi-oriented detective novels with linked-corpses, but the quiet, unassuming plot and storytelling made it one of the more compelling and absorbing entries in the series. A first-rate village mystery!

The Case of the Curious Client (1947) by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush's The Case of the Curious Client (1947) is the 32nd Ludovic Travers novel and it is, as it says on the tin, a curious case with an interesting take on the WWII-themed mysteries and can be grouped with the British postwar WWII detective novels – a period of austerity, social malaise and a crumbling empire. However, the plot is rooted in the rise of Oswald Mosley's "Blackshirts" in the 1930s when the South Coast of England was "a hotbed of Fascism." So it was fascinating to read a detective novel built around the periods bookending the Second World War. 

The Case of the Curious Client opens on Guy Fawkes Day, 1945, which is the first one to be celebrated with bonfires and fireworks since the war started and the papers were full with "the old pre-war kind of gossip about the Bonfire Boys of Lewes and the South Coast." A fact that will function as one of the hinges of the plot.

At the time, Ludovic Travers is still learning the ropes of the private eye business from Bill Ellice, of the Broad Street Detective Agency, and is holding the fort when the agency receives an urgent telephone call from a prospective client. Herbert Dorvan wants the detective agency to track down his nephew, Robert Dorvan, who had recently returned to England as a "prisoner of war in Japanese hands," but never got in touch with his uncle and he needs him "as a sort of bodyguard" – because he believes his life is in danger. There already had been attempt made on his life. So they schedule an appointment at the Southern Hotel that afternoon, but, when Travers arrives, Dorvan has already returned home. He left behind a note asking Travers to meet him in two days time at the village of Midgley.

Midgley is situated very near the southern English coast, but Travers, once again, never gets to see his client. Not alive anyway. Travers finds the house locked up with a note pinned on the door, "away till Wednesday," but naturally, he doesn't trust the situation and eventually has the local police break open one of the doors. What they find inside is Dorvan, lying in the living room, with a bullet in his head! Dorvan had been dead for some days and it seems his murderer had used the "squibs and fireworks" of Guy Fawkes Night to hide the sound of the gunshot.

I've to mention here that The Case of the Curious Client is, perhaps, the tidiest and clearest of Bush's late 1940s novels with a relatively simple and straightforward that would have been better fitted for a short story, or novella, but Bush managed to get a whole novel out of the plot – which he accomplished without any needless padding or stretching. For example, there are only three suspects to consider (a who-of-the-three type of detective story I've come to associate with Gosho Aoyama). All three are nephews of the victim. There's the previously mentioned Robert Dorvan and his half-brother, Sidney Dorvan, who's the owner of a London nightclub, the Ginger Cat. Gerry Bruff is a radio-impressionist with his own shown on the BBC.

However, Robert, Sidney and Gerry all have alibis, some better than others, but what they lack is a strong motive, because there was very little money coming their way. So could the motive for Dorvan's murder be hidden somewhere in his questionable, pre-war activities?

During the 1930s, Dorvan blamed the ruination of his furniture business on "Jewish undercutting” and "declared war, as it were, on Jews in general." Dorvan had a sign on his door, "NO YIDS NEED APPLY," but also contributed funds to the British Fascist Movement, spoke at meetings and "recognised as one of the big men by those in the know." When France fell to the Germans, Dorvan was interned under Defense Regulation 18B, his business was closed down and his nephews, who were close associates, were out of a job too. 

So, yeah, this is really neat and tidy whodunit and you can put together the whole puzzle before the explanation is given, certainly after the second murder and a £200 clue, but it's not too obvious at the start of the story. You need to do some puzzling to reveal this person, which is not bad when you only have three suspects to work with. The Case of the Curious Client has other bits and pieces that added interest to the story.

In his 1950s novels, like The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel (1952) and The Case of the Flowery Corpse (1956), Bush began to show an interest in forensics and technology as tools of the law, but he already played with it here. Travers takes part in a "bugging" operation of the Ginger Cat and the floor over the nightclub is secretly taken over, "requisitioned by a Government Department as an overflow for old documents and correspondence," where a microphone has been placed under the floorboards and them listening to the fragments of conversation coming through the earphones is hands down the best scene in the book – even if it's not exactly ethical. And at the scene of the second murder, the police has "a temporary telephone" installed to better coordinate the investigation. I don't remember ever having come across one of these temporary telephones in detective fiction, but it makes sense to do so and wonder if these were ever actually used or something Bush imagined would be a good idea.

However, the absolute highlight of the story is the return of the Old General of the Yard, Superintendent George Wharton, who had lost of him luster in the 1950s titles (looking old and tired), but he was his old self again here. Wharton is a showman and a master of his craft who "disguises his height with a stoop" and dons antiquated spectacles for his own "obscure and deceptive purposes." A pure showman whose "sleeves are crammed with innumerable tricks" and "his personality alert with innumerable disguises to be assumed on each apt occasion," which makes him a perfect contrast to his more introspective and theoretical friend. Travers has "the crossword kind of brain" that "loves problems and is quick to find solutions," but his "fluent theorising" is not always correct (one out of three theories) and this can count on some good-natured mockery on Wharton's part. Although he's already too willing to assimilate such theories when they're proven right. They play off each other so well when they're both at the top of the game and, more than once, Wharton beat Travers to the solution, which adds a whole different layer to this series.

I've said this in my review of The Case of the Platinum Blonde (1944), but I'll say it again: nobody else, past or present, nailed the relationship between the (quasi) amateur detective and the professional policeman as perfectly as Bush did with Travers and Wharton. I think it's not too late for modern mystery writers to learn a thing or two from Bush.

So, all in all, The Case of the Curious Client is not one of the most complex novels in the series, but it's a tidily written, competently plotted detective novel with Bush getting more out of the story than what was put into it. Something that only very rarely happens with detective stories, but this is one of those rarities. A must-read for dedicated fans of the series or readers with a special interest in WWII-themed mysteries.

The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel (1952) by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush has been described as one "the most reliable and resourceful" mystery novelists of his day, who made his name in the 1930s as a craftsman of elaborate and magnificently baroque detective novels, but the turmoil of the Second World War took the series in a different direction – starting with The Case of the Murdered Major (1941). The first title in Bush's wartime trilogy that began the transformation of Ludovic Travers from an unofficial affiliate of Scotland Yard to licensed, but genteel, private investigator. A change that was influenced by the American hardboiled school of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, which reached its zenith in the early fifties with such novels as The Case of the Corner Cottage (1951) and The Case of the Fourth Detective (1951).

I noted in my review of The Case of the Flowery Corpse (1956) that then 70-year-old Bush was probably feeling a little nostalgic when he wrote the book, because the plot reminded me J.J. Connington, Freeman Wills Crofts and R. Austin Freeman. Early writers of the Realist School. A school Bush has always been associated with on account of his expertise in taking apart seemingly unbreakable alibis and whose early practitioners he must have read as a young man. So it's not unlikely Bush returned in his old age to the type of detective stories he read and enjoyed in the 1910s and 1920s.

That's the impression The Case of the Flowery Corpse left on me and The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel (1952) strengthens that observation with a typically Croftian alibi, false identities and a (hidden) criminal scheme, but no idea if this is actually a third phase in the series – or simply brief, nostalgic nods to a bygone era. Either way, the results were very satisfying.

The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel is the forty-first entry in the series and begins with Ludovic Travers, chairman and owner of the Broad Street Detective Agency, personally accepting a routine assignment.

Henry Clandon is a publisher who served at a place called Larentza, in Sicily, where "an unsuccessful night attack" had left him "in no-man's-land with a lump of shrapnel in his belly." A young officer from another regiment, David Seeway, had brought him in and had later come to see him in hospital, but only for a few minutes with sister nervously fluttering around the bed. Clandon never got to properly express his gratitude and now feels "damnably ungrateful" to the young soldier, which is why he wants the agency to find Seeway, but he only has a general description of the man – an infantryman in his mid-twenties who probably came from a place called Bassingford. A quiet little town about twenty-five miles north of London. A second clue is that Seeway made a reference to a man named Archie Dibben.

Travers believes there's something "remarkably peculiar" about the case and decides to make the opening moves himself, but all he has to work with are two names and a location. Soon he learns that Archie Dibben is a two-bit comedy actor who used to be part of a touring company that spent one week, in 1939, in Bassingford to perform Under My Thumb. So why would Seeway reference an obsure actor at the bedside of the wounded Clandon? What exactly happened during that week that made them completely disappear from the map?

The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel is a tightly knotted affair, but the complexity is not derived from an overly elaborate plot, but the way in which the problems are presented. The story begins with a simple request to find a person and the only clues are a couple of names, but every piece of information that's unearthed also brings more questions to light.

So the plot becomes more complex as the story progresses and it's not until the twisted, dimly-lit path of the past brings Travers to a small house, where he finds the body of the titular “colonel,” that the problem begins to assume a definitive shape – which brings one of my favorite policemen to the scene, Chief Superintendent George Wharton. Wharton has lost some of his luster here ("looking a bit tired" and "his huge shoulders were more hunched than usual"), but it was good to see him again working alongside Travers. I really missed Wharton in The Case of the Flying Donkey (1939) and The Case of the Flowery Corpse.

The murders provides more physical clues to get a handle on the case, such as two faded photographs and a mysterious fingerprints, which Travers and Wharton use to meticulously reduce the number of suspects. And by the end of the story, there are only two of them left. There is, however, a complication that demonstrated why Bush was a craftsman: one of these suspects fabricated an alibi, while the after had left an incriminating fingerprint at the scene of the murder. So who killed the colonel and how does that explain either the alibi or fingerprint of the other suspect? How is it possible that there a mystery readers who don't like Bush?

All in all, The Case of the Counterfeit Colonel is a gratifying detective novel with a deceivingly uncomplicated front, but the clever writing and story structure spins a great deal of complexity around, what really is, a simple and uncomplicated plot. This allowed Bush to get more out of the situation than what originally was in it. I don't think you give a mystery writer a bigger compliment. Another great reprint from Dean Street Press.

The Case of the Flowery Corpse (1956) by Christopher Bush

The Case of the Flowery Corpse (1956) is the 49th Ludovic Travers novel by Christopher Bush, now "an Elder Statesman of Murder," while Travers has completed his transition from an amateur detective to a genteel private investigator with a controlling interest in the Broad Street Detective Agency, but this late novel hearkens back to the quiet, rural village mysteries of previous decades – rife with blackmail, gossip and murder. Something very different from the post-war malaise or the seedier murders found in The Case of the Fourth Detective (1951) and The Case of the Amateur Actor (1955).

The Case of the Flowery Corpse begins with Travers driving down to roads of rural Suffolk, where he was born, to spend a belated holiday with an old college friend, Sir Henry Morle, who bought a little place in the village of Marstead. When he was close to being lost, Travers was overtaken on the road by a reckless driver who must have been either "drunk or mad." So he was not surprised to find the car ahead of him "piled up against a scrub oak in the hedge" with its front in shambles and the driver without a heartbeat.

An unfortunate, if unsurprising, roadside accident without an apparent hint of foul play, but a closer examination and a strange coincidence turns Travers' vacation into a busman's holiday.

Norman Ranger is the name of the dead driver, "virtually the stage type of Irishman," who deliberately set out to to ingratiate himself with the villagers, but, once accepted, suddenly changed his behavior and "had made himself objectionable to practically everybody" – while never divulging a single thing about his past or the source of his income. Curiously, on the night he got killed, someone tried to burglarize his home and that's quite a rare crime in the peaceful village. What are the chances the burglary and the car crash happened on the same night? And to make it even more suspicious, the doctor send the organs to the county analyst to be tested for poisons. So they're either looking at a bizarre accident littered with coincidences and mysteries or deliberate murder.

Sir Henry is elated at the possibility of a crime and getting to see the "unofficial expert" of Scotland Yard tackling their little domestic murder, but the Chief Constable quickly decided to call in the Yard. Sadly, the case is too unimportant for Superintendent George Wharton to handle. This is where The Case of the Flowery Corpse begins to differ quite a bit from the early and later novels in the series that I have read.

So my favorite Scotland Yard detective is replaced with the quiet, competent and keen-eyed Chief-Inspector Jewle. Where Wharton "would have raised hands of despair and upbraiding to high heaven," Jewle "would shrug his shoulders and carry on," but I can understand why Bush sidelined Wharton here – because the plot required a more plodding detective. There are no alibis that need destroying and even the identity of the murderer is not central to the plot, but peeling away the layers of mysteries surrounding the victim's identity and his past, which eventually exposes a link between him and his murderer. Interestingly, the plot is propelled by a surprising amount of forensic detective work carried out in the background of the story.

I've already mentioned the chemical analyses, but an examination of the second victim's clothes, found covered in straw, reveals he had come in very close contact with chrysanthemums and microscopic fibers inextricably linked the two deaths together. Casts are made of footprints and tire marks found at the crime scenes. Travers asks the police to get him a picture of Ranger with the hair lightened up. So that people who knew him with lighter hair can easier recognize him. An early example of (forensic) photoshopping.

So the structure and feeling of The Case of the Flowery Corpse differs quite a bit from the novels Bush wrote during the 1930s and 1940s. It actually felt like a J.J. Connington or Freeman Wills Crofts novel from the 1920s with the same quiet, unassuming competence of the British detective story from that period. Bush was 70-years-old when The Case of the Flowery Corpse was published and you have to wonder if he was feeling a little nostalgic, but the ending was a reminder he had taken the series in a new direction. And the ending finally gave Travers the full detective experience! So, yeah, another welcome, long overdue reprint from the wonderful Dean Street Press.

The Case of the Flying Donkey (1939) by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush's The Case of the Flying Donkey (1939) is the 21st novel in the Ludovic Travers series, originally published under the attention-grabbing title The Case of the Flying Ass, but Dean Street Press decided to reprint this, once exceedingly rare, novel under a less foolish sounding title – a title change that was not explained, or acknowledges, in Curt Evan's introduction. I think The Case of the Flying Jackass would have been a better compromise between the old and new title.

The Case of the Flying Donkey forms a two-book arc, of sorts, with The Case of the Climbing Rat (1940) set in France before the outbreak of the Second World War. Evans described these novels as  "a heartfelt tribute to a nation that soon was to be mercilessly scourged by German invasion and occupation." However, the rummy story of the flying donkey also shows that the English can find the French a trying people to be around.

Three years previously, Travers purchased a painting in Paris on the advise of his artistic friend, Inspector Laurin Gallois, of the Sûreté Générale, who acts as the substitute of the sorely missed Superintendent George Wharton. 

The picture is a still-life by Henri Larne, "a new, tremendous figure in French art," who signs all his work with the tiny drawing of a winged donkey, but, years later, this picture attracts the unwanted attention of a dodgy, Parisian art dealer, Georges Braque – a slippery rascal who left behind an invitation to visit him when he's in Paris. Travers is intrigued as to "the precise nature of his rascality" and happened to be planning to spend a fortnight abroad with his wife, Bernice, but Gallois advises him to ignore Braque until he contacts him. And just to tell his strange story to Larne to see what he makes of it.

Not long after his talk with Gallois, Travers is called on the phone by Braque to ask if he could see him at his private apartment at six o'clock, but, when Travers crossed the threshold of rue Jourdoise, he stumbles over the still warm body of the disreputable art dealer. A knife was stuck sideways in the ribs!

The Case of the Flying Donkey has several converging plot-lines, but they're all involve the handful of characters that populate the story, which makes the story feel like a small, private affair. Firstly, there's the famous painter, Henri Larne, with his parasitical half-brother, Pierre, who exhausted his brother's patience. Elise Deschamps is the model Henri employed as a model for his next painting, but she turns out to have a link with Braque. What about the Braque's business partner, Bernard Cointeau, who has the misfortune of having an unconfirmed alibi? Or the two servants, Hortense and Bertrand, hovering in the background.

So, most readers probably won't have any problem with reeling in the murderer from this small pool of suspects well before the end of the story, but this still leaves you with two questions to answer, why and how, because the murderer possesses "an alibi which is more than perfect" – an alibi-trick Travers labeled as "one of the best" he has ever encountered. There's an undeniable elegance and imaginative quality as to how the alibi was staged, but Travers has encountered better and more original cast-iron alibis. 

For example, Cut Throat (1930) and The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936) are masterpieces of the alibi-busting detective story with fiendishly clever manipulations of time, while The Case of the Hanging Rope (1937) has one of the most audacious alibis in the series with a highly unpredictable element. That being said, this alibi-trick still showed, as Nick Fuller once said, that Bush was to the unbreakable alibi what John Dickson Carr was to the impossible crime.

The strongest link in the plot was the scheme, "a veritable gold-mine," which is at the heart of the murder case that tied everyone, and everything, together and gave the story its title. Particularly, the motive and the shady art dealings were very well done.

However, The Case of the Flying Donkey lacked the complexity of the earlier 1930s novels and is comparable, plot-wise, with the latter, less densely plotted, entries in the series such as The Case of the Haven Hotel (1948), The Case of the Fourth Detective (1951) and The Case of the Amateur Actor (1955). A short and relatively minor novel that could have been even shorter had Gallois shown all his cards to Travers and not regarded "the mystifying of his partner as the first essential." Gallois redeemed himself a little when he clasped eyes on a couple of monstrosities of modern art and told Travers "there is the kind of thing on which I would not even spit."

So, on a whole, I found The Case of the Flying Donkey to be an unevenly written and plotted detective story that read like an expended short story or novella, which makes it only recommendable (with reservations) to loyal fans of the series – who are the most likely to appreciate the different track Bush took here. But, if you're (somewhat) new to the series, I recommend you start at an earlier point in the series.