Wed 22 Feb 2012
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: GEORGE BELLAIRS – Corpse at the Carnival.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[7] Comments
William F. Deeck
GEORGE BELLAIRS – Corpse at the Carnival. Gifford, UK, hardcover, 1958. Penguin, paperback, 1964. No US edition.
Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is flying to the Isle of Man for a vacation with his friend, the Rev. Caesar Kinrade, Archdeacon of Man. Littlejohn had just attended an international police conference in Dublin where he had been asked to lecture on his methods. The other attendees had been shocked to discover he had none.
Nonetheless, the local C.I.D. hasten to get him involved in the strange murder of a man known as Uncle Fred, whose last names were, depending on where he was, Snook, Snowball, and Boycott. Somebody stabbed Uncle Fred, and he died on the Douglas promenade.
This is another boarding-house mystery, with all the oddball characters generated by that locale. Interesting also is the Information about the Isle of Man, which Littlejohn doesn’t get to see enough of.
Despite his lack of method, though, he does discover who killed the multi-named Uncle Fred in a leisurely but fascinating investigation.
Bio-Bibliographic Data: Quoting from the Fantastic Fiction website:
You’ll also find a list of titles there, along with loads of cover images.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:49 pm
I’ve made no attempt to count the number of books in the Superintendent Littlejohn series, but “more than 50” sounds right to me.
I’ve read one or two of them, and even on that limited basis I’d agree with Bill’s verdict, “a leisurely but fascinating investigation.”
Bellair’s writing career began in 1941, and even though it did not end until 1980, I’d call him a Golden Age of Detection author, through and through.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:04 am
I’m pretty sure CADS had one or more articles on Bellairs. Ask Geoff Bradley.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:34 am
A good suggestion. Bellairs is exactly the kind of author that CADS likes to cover. He’s pretty much unknown in the US. Again I didn’t do an exact count, but checking with Hubin, I’d say that only a third of his books have been published over here.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:36 pm
The only thing striking about Bellairs, to me, is his attention to character detail, sometimes at the expense of the mystery. I reviewed my reading log and found these remarks:
THE CASE OF THE FAMISHED PARSON (first Bellairs book I ever read)
“In fact, it is Bellairs’ treatment of his characters that is the most impressive part of this book. All of them get real lives, unusual traits and are fully fleshed out no matter how small their role in the story. I was very taken with the diversity of the characters as well as his skillful use of language and regional dialects.”
But then I read two other books several years later and I had these reactions:
THE CASE OF THE SCARED RABBITS
“The bulk of the book is spent in detailed mini portraits of all the characters and no one escapes the author’s trenchant wit. The scene in the pub where Littlejohn eavesdrops on the village gossip is particularly heavy on the ridicule. The detective plot in this book is very much lost in all this joking and bandying – not much of it funny and a lot of it plain mean.”
THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED
“Nicely handled story of what became a mainstay of Agatha Christie – the investigation of the crime long forgotten. Interesting character work as we see them as they were viewed at the time of the murders in 1917 and then see what they have become in 1940. His nifty trick of giving every character their due goes a bit overboard in this early novel and by the end it tended to annoy me since I was being told everything rather than shown it. This one had a rather surprising solution in that there were two murderers and not one.”
Of the three I liked THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED as a mystery the best. …SCARED RABBITS is more of a comic novel about village life and the mystery is filled with clichés of Nazis and Germans from pulp magazine stories. I have a box filled with his books and never bothered to read any of them after these three were such a mixed bag even though they have enticing titles like THE CRIME IN LEPER’S HOLLOW, THE CASE OF THE HEADLESS JESUIT, OUTRAGE ON GALLOW’S HILL and THE CURSING STONES MURDER. He has a love of the Gothic in his settings and sometimes in the way the murders are committed.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:55 pm
J.F., your reading log fascinates me. Our reaction to any book is dependent on the moment the reader reads the book. As we grow and change our reactions to the same book grow and change as we see the book from a different point of view.
Does reading your log give you insight to how you have changed as a reader and person?
In an era where bloggers get TV series, that log would make a great book.
February 23rd, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Michael & Steve –
I don’t want to monopolize the comment section with a tiresome confessional explication so I’ll briefly answer that question with a very firm and undeniable “Yes!” Going over those remarks definitely reveal to me that I have become intolerant to ridicule and mockery in my middle age. I’d like to think that I’m an introspective and highly self-aware person. I don’t really need to gain insight into myself by re-reading those logs, but I will admit I was a bit stunned by the change in my reaction to one writer’s method in dealing with characters in his fiction. It was certainly a very personal reaction. I’m sure I was going through a rough patch at the time.
I seriously doubt that my reading logs would make a great book, but thanks for thinking of the idea. I wouldn’t dare foist it upon any editor for possible publication. Much of the content is extremely personal and I’m way too sensitive. But it did provide me with a lot of material to inspire many of my posts at my blog.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Michael said: “Our reaction to any book is dependent on the moment the reader reads the book. As we grow and change our reactions to the same book grow and change as we see the book from a different point of view.”
JF said: “…I was a bit stunned by the change in my reaction to one writer’s method in dealing with characters in his fiction. It was certainly a very personal reaction.”
In reply:
As I’ve been finding old reviews that appeared in zines over the years and have been posting them here, I find exactly the same thing is true, and I’ve often added updated thoughts on these reviews as I read through them again. Sometimes I agree with myself, and at other times I wonder exactly what it was that I was thinking. Sometimes I wonder why it was that I wasted time even reading a book I read then and wouldn’t dream of reading now. And as John says, sometimes my reaction to a book back then (and I’m talking about books I read and reviewed up to 30 years ago) was so personal that I don’t feel comfortable reprinting them now. And so I don’t.
And of course what I also find fascinating is that I’m finding books that I read and reviewed that I don’t remember ever having read. It’s like taking a time machine into the past — my own.