Sat 15 Jul 2017
JOHN RHODE – Dead of the Night. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1942. Popular Library #99, no date stated [1946]. First published in the UK as Night Exercise, Collins, 1942.
There are not many detective novels written during wartime, and World War II in particular, in which the war effort at home (England, in this case) is such an integral part of the story as it is in Dead of the Night.
The first 60 pages are taken up with a detailed description of a night drill conducted by the local company of the Home Guard set up for the small fictitious town of Wealdhurst. In charge of the mock operation is Major Ledbury, who has his finger on everything, except for the “invading force,” who have orders to act totally by surprise and on their own. Even the women in the town have their jobs to do, manning water pumps and tending to the fallen.
This is fascinating. If scenarios such as this were covered in my high school history classes, I wouldn’t have slept through them.
At the close of the simulated invasion, it turns out that a much disliked Group Commander named Colonel Chalgrove has gone missing. The next 70 pages are spent in wondering where he may have gotten to, with suspicion falling largely on Major Ledbury, especially by the men under his command. Not so much so by Inspector Kilby, who has been put in charge of the case, although he does has to keep an open mind about the matter.
The investigation that follows, as much as I hate to say it, is as dull as dirt, consisting mostly of conversations about reports that have come in to headquarters. It’s talk, talk and more talk, the same limited ground trampled over, over and over. If the reader can’t pinpoint the killer on his or her own 30 pages before the end of the book, he or she simply wasn’t paying attention. Or had snoozed off long before.
Not every relic of the Golden Age is a gem. Not a keeper.
July 15th, 2017 at 6:13 pm
I had exactly the same reaction as Steve.
I loved the opening section with its “night exercise”.
And found the rest of the book perfunctory.
Rhode has a real gift for describing rural landscapes, and the activities that take place there. This runs throughout his mysteries, as a strong suit. In this novel, the landscape where the drill takes place is very well imagined.
I wondered, without hard evidence, if Major Ledbury is an autobiographical self-portrait of Rhode himself.
July 15th, 2017 at 8:08 pm
I’ve read one or two mysteries by Rhode, and enjoyed them. This wasn’t one of them, and halfway through your review I thought “Boy, I’ll have to get this one!“, but of course that idea was quickly erased as I read on. Too bad.
July 15th, 2017 at 9:42 pm
I’m now two for two as far as books by Rhode turning out badly. The first one was over 20 years ago, and it put me off from trying another until now.
But that first one was written in the 50s, as I recall, so I was hoping for better with this earlier one. I was quite happy with it, too, until I realized that it wasn’t going in any of the directions I was hoping it was going to do. The potential was there, or so I thought.
July 16th, 2017 at 12:53 am
The humdrum charge was sadly sometimes true. I fared better with early Rhode and Miles Burton.
July 16th, 2017 at 5:48 am
There are probably a couple of dozen of Rhodes and Miles Burtons available on Kindle, mostly at $1.99 each, for anyone who wants to try one.
July 16th, 2017 at 3:52 pm
By coincidence I just received an email from Amazon, one of those saying, “Based on your past purchases we think you’d like…”
and one the Rhode books on Kindle was one they suggested. I guess they didn’t read my review. Or didn’t know I don’t have a Kindle.
July 16th, 2017 at 3:58 pm
Hmmmmm…. I’m trying to think of Mysteries set in Wartime. So far only GREEN FOR DANGER and NIGHT OF THE GENERALS come to mind.
July 16th, 2017 at 4:04 pm
I’m sure I’ve read an article about detective stories with wartime activities an essential part of the plot — or the lack thereof — but I can’t remember where or when. (I don’t mean to include stories in which rationing is mentioned, for example, as part of the basic day-to-day setting.)
July 16th, 2017 at 7:04 pm
There are several mystery series set in wartime or partially in that era, and quite a few stand alones. Most of the Golden Age writers had the war far in the background either based on the idea people wanted escape or war based stories tended to stray into melodrama.
Still, there is PICK YOUR VICTIM among the best of the classics, some of Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books, at least on series with a Wehrmacht agent sleuth, and another with a French policeman teamed with a Gestapo man during the Occupation.
By far the majority of such books are thrillers from the war on with a modicum if any detection, but there are exceptions. Winston Graham wrote one set in the Blitz about an officer on leave finding a body and there was one about a scarred veteran solving a murder involving the Blitz. Anthony Gilbert wrote one with spies, but a good deal of detection filmed as THEY MET IN THE DARK with James Mason, and at least one Anthony Maitland by Sara Woods dates back to the war years.
In general war seems to be deemed so horrific that one murder doesn’t matter to most writers looking for their fictional crime to stick out.
July 16th, 2017 at 8:17 pm
A good list of stories, David. Thank you. I think your last paragraph sums things up very well.
In this particular book, what made the early pages so effective, describing the hometown exercise in civil defense in ultra-fine detail, was the fact that there was there was such an immediacy to it. Britain did not know when the Germans would attack, or where or how, only that they would. Everyone chipped in their efforts as they could. with very little grumbling about it.
And in all the confusion, organized and not, what better time to commit a murder? There was a lot of potential there that was wasted when Rhode didn’t follow up on this nearly as well as I thought he should, and could have.
July 16th, 2017 at 10:15 pm
Rhode’s novel known as They Watched by Night (1941) in Britain and Signal For Death in the US, is a mystery with a World War II Britain setting.
Once again, the opening (Chapter 1 to start of Chapter 6) is much better than the rest of the novel.
Death of a Train (1947) by Freeman Wills Crofts, has a wartime background – although it was written after the war.