Hanover Browsing
THIS MAY BE AS GOOD A TIME as any to write a few notes on a few writers of crime, particularly as I mentioned last month that I would write on detective fiction at some future time. I know of no better escape from the realities of war, inflation, F.D.R. and Congress, Dick Tracy and Orphan Annie, books on uplift, Prohibitionists, etc., than good detective stories. Soldiers like them too, so send your copies on.
For me all roads in detective fiction lead back to Sherlock Holmes. I began reading Doyle when I was about ten and I've been a devoted lover of Holmes ever since. Though I cannot claim to be a Baker Street Irregular (I almost became one once) I am one in spirit. I have read two biographies of Holmes, a monograph on Mrs. Hudson, all the theories about Mycroft and Dr. Moriarty; I have walked many times up and down Baker Street, pausing at 227 B; I have thought of him when I've been at Paddington, on the moors of Exmoor, and on many misty days in London and throughout the English countryside. Holmes was always dashing somewhere!
Every two or three years I read through, always with delight, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. He never tires me, never bores me. I know the stories by heart, but there is always something, an atmosphere perhaps, that leads me on. Holmes must indeed be dead by now for he made his last bow during the last Great War, and even then he was retired. But he will live long in the hearts of his admirers, and may they always be legion.
I wish I could still believe he was keeping bees on "a small farm upon the downs five miles from Eastbourne," but I suspect he is now discussing serious philosophical problems with his creator Sir Arthur. Peace to their ashes.
I confess, too, that detective stories with an English background are my favorites.
As I shall discuss women writers in a separate paragraph or two in my next installment, I shall mention here those English writers who have given me the most pleasure and those whose backgrounds are invariably London or the English countryside.
R. Austin Freeman, a doctor who recently died in his early eighties, is one of my favorites. His creation of Dr. Thorndyke, the medico-legal detective, is one that approaches, though not too close, the creation of Sherlock Holmes. Read the Thorndyke Omnibus, 1088 pages of short stories (published in England by Hodder & Stoughton), and see if some of these stories don't remind you of some of the adventures of Holmes. They are really first class.
R. J. Walling has written some good stories about Tolegree but they are uneven in quality. Even so I never pass up a new Walling, who is an English country lawyer, and I wish they appeared more often.
H. C. Bailey is the favorite of many. Reggie Fortune has always had a large following, as has the psalm singing Joshua Clunk. Fortune believes that his is a wicked world, while Clunk is on the optimistic side. Both have a few too many mannerisms but as the poet once said, "never look a gift horse in the mouth," and this applies strictly to readers of detective stories who can never find enough good ones to read.
Freeman Wills Crofts can always be depended on to write a sound, competent mystery. There are no short cuts in the methods of Inspector French. He plods through a case with the thoroughness of a retriever. He epitomizes the Scotland Yard inspector, and he always gets his man (or woman) to the satisfaction of all. The Croft backgrounds are perfectly done and one learns a lot about England in reading his books.
This is likewise true of John Rhode, creator of the slightly smug Dr. Priestley. This gentleman never fails to see more in the clue of the "wooden image," or of the slightly tarnished collar button, than Inspector Haslett, who is no dumb bunny himself. One good thing about English detective stories is that the murderer always hangs. In America one has the feeling that somehow the murderer's lawyer will get him off. I like to hear the trap drop.
John Dickson Carr (with Dr. Gideon Fell, a slightly older Reggie Fortune) and Carter Dickson (with "old H. M.," Sir Henry Merrivale to you) may also be depended on. Mr. Carr writes entertainingly with either the right or left hand, depending on his mood. I prefer Merrivale to Fell, for "H. M." reminds me of a bewhiskered gentleman named Huntley in one of Peter Arno's cartoons.
Graham Greene has lifted the murder story almost to a work of art. He is one of the few contemporary writers of this kind of fiction who is worth the collector's serious interest. Read his The ConfidentialAgent or Brighton Rock, and you will see what I mean.
I shall write another installment on this field next month.
