Wed 9 Jul 2014
JOHN BUDE – The Lake District Murder. British Library Crime Classics, UK, softcover, 2014. First edition: Skeffington & Son, UK, hardcover, 1935. No US edition.
One positive statement I can make about this recent reprint of an old obscure British mystery is that it describes both the time and place of its setting in very enjoyable, if not loving detail. The Lake District is located in the northwest corner of England, up not too far from the Scottish border. In 1935 at least, it was filled with small picturesque villages and shopping centers and long stretches of isolated roads, populated by only the occasional petrol station.
And it is in one of these petrol stations that the body of one of the two co-owners is found dead, an apparent suicide — the man seems to have shut himself up in a shed with the engine of a car running.
Suicide is the obvious conclusion, of course, but Inspector Meredith, second on the scene, has his doubts. The man’s dinner was prepared and sitting in his kitchen waiting for him. An autopsy soon proves the inspector correct.
The problem is that all of Meridith’s suspects have iron-clad alibis, and it takes the rest of book to work out in detail how they managed to pull off the murder, which was planned to the smallest of details. Except for the meal, of course!
And mind you, if you were to slog your way through the middle 80% of the book (a verb chosen quite carefully on my part), you will learn far more than you want to know about the wholesale petrol delivery business, including the size of hoses, nozzles, storage tanks, and rate of delivery. How on earth could a delivery truck deliver on a given day 200 more gallons of petrol than the tank in the truck could hold?
It is a puzzle but it is also a matter easily explained, once it is decided that the impossible really is impossible, but the solution to that small enigma only produces another, nor is there still enough evidence to insure a conviction. Until that is, a small boy’s find puts Meredith on the right track, a small boy not mentioned before, I reluctantly have concluded, and if Meredith had remembered the incident at the time of the inquest, much of the huge amount of dogged down-to-earth pre-forensics lab police work may have been avoided.
Are my quibbles outweighed by the fascinating trip back in time and place that a book such as this provides? You’ll have to answer that question for yourself. I know I’ll never read this one again, but all in all, I’m happy to have had the chance to read it for the first time.
July 10th, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Sounds like Bude had problems limiting how much of his research he really had to put into the novel, but then any writer can sympathize. You do all that work and it is hard not to include it all whether it is needed or not.
I think I read something by Bude, but not this one. I’m a distant cousin to some Bude’s in England and Scotland and always wondered if he was one of them.
The Lake District is not quite so isolated today, being a popular site for setting up caravans and ‘roughing’ it in a beautiful setting even today, but even in the seventies the villages tended towards quaint — today they probably all have McDonalds and Starbucks though I’m sure there is some actual quaint mixed with the manufactured kind related to the tourist business.
Someone needs to do a survey of how many detectives named Meredith there are. This makes two with Francis Gerard’s Sir John Meredith.
July 10th, 2014 at 6:37 pm
From Al Hubin’s CRIME FICTION IV:
Meredith, Cal
Marsha Mildon: (books)
Fighting for Air (n.) New Victoria 1995 [Canada]
Stalking the Goddess Ship (n.) New Victoria 1999 [Canada]
Meredith, Chief Insp. (Supt.) Sir John
Francis Gerard: (books)
The Black Emperor (n.) Rich 1936 [Africa]
Concrete Castle (n.) Rich 1936 [England]
The Dictatorship of the Dove (n.) Rich 1936 [England]
Number 1-2-3 (n.) Rich 1936 [England]
Fatal Friday (n.) Rich 1937 [England]
Red Rope (n.) Rich 1937 [England]
Secret Sceptre (n.) Rich 1937 [Wales]
Golden Guilt (n.) Rich 1938 [England]
The Prince of Paradise (n.) Rich 1938 [Saudi Arabia]
Emerald Embassy (n.) Rich 1939 [England]
Wotan’s Wedge (n.) Rich 1939 [England]
The Mind of John Meredith (n.) Macdonald 1946 [Wales]
Sorcerer’s Shaft (n.) Macdonald 1947 [England]
Flight Into Fear (n.) Macdonald 1948 [Africa; Air]
The Prisoner of the Pyramid (n.) Macdonald 1948 [Mexico]
The Promise of the Phoenix (n.) Macdonald 1950 [U.S.]
Transparent Traitor (n.) Macdonald 1950 [England]
Bare Bodkin (n.) Macdonald 1951 [England]
Meredith, Idwal
Robert Barnard: (books)
Unruly Son (n.) Collins 1978 [England]
At Death’s Door (n.) Collins 1988 [England]
Meredith, Insp. William
John Bude: (books)
The Cornish Coast Murder (n.) Skeffington 1935 [England]
The Lake District Murder (n.) Skeffington 1935 [England]
The Sussex Downs Murder (n.) Skeffington 1936 [England]
The Cheltenham Square Murder (n.) Skeffington 1937 [England]
Death on Paper (n.) Hale 1940 [England]
Death Knows No Calendar (n.) Cassell 1942 [England]
Death Deals a Double (n.) Cassell 1943 [England]
Death in White Pajamas (n.) Cassell 1944 [England]
Death in Ambush (n.) Macdonald 1945 [England]
Trouble A-Brewing (n.) Macdonald 1946 [England]
Death Makes a Prophet (n.) Macdonald 1947 [England]
Dangerous Sunlight (n.) Macdonald 1948 [England]
A Glut of Red Herrings (n.) Macdonald 1949 [England]
Death Steals the Show (n.) Macdonald 1950 [Theatre; England]
The Constable and the Lady (n.) Macdonald 1951 [England]
Death on the Riviera (n.) Macdonald 1952 [France]
When the Case Was Opened (n.) Macdonald 1952 [England]
Twice Dead (n.) Macdonald 1953 [England]
So Much in the Dark (n.) Macdonald 1954 [England]
Two Ends to the Town (n.) Macdonald 1955 [England]
A Shift of Guilt (n.) Macdonald 1956 [England]
A Telegram from Le Touquet (n.) Macdonald 1956 [France]
Another Man’s Shadow (n.) Macdonald 1957 [England]
Meredith, Lt.
Diana Ramsay: (books)
A Little Murder Music (n.) Collins 1972 [New York City, NY]
Deadly Discretion (n.) Collins 1973
No Cause to Kill (n.) Collins 1974
You Can’t Call It Murder (n.) Collins 1977
April 30th, 2015 at 10:32 am
Good review, Steve. I think you have hit the nail on the head with this novel.
It is quite a charming book in a way. Very readable even to a modern audience, and the unwitting period detail is fascinating (e.g. one clue is a fake Hitler moustache!).
I would agree the middle section gets terribly bogged down in the intricacies of petrol pumps, tanks and tubing. The original murder gets put to one side while all that is worked out, then only comes back to the fore in a rather hurried final section. At that point the police suddenly discover lots of incriminating evidence, one suspects because the murder plot has rather been neglected at the expense of the petrol delivery sub-plot.
But like you I am glad I read it. I preferred Bude’s Cornwall mystery, and would recommend either novel to anyone who enjoys a Golden Age detective story with lots of period detail. Just don’t go expecting Agatha Christie-style mastery of the genre!