Thu 28 Jul 2011
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: RICHARD GOYNE – The Lipstick Clue.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
William F. Deeck
RICHARD GOYNE – The Lipstick Clue. Stanley Paul, UK, hardcover, 1954. No US edition.
Collectors of clergyman detectives may want to try Goyne’s series featuring The Padre — the Rev. Peter Eversleigh — whom I do not remember seeing on lists of clergy detectives.
One of the reasons The Padre may not have made such lists is that his denomination, at least in this novel, is not revealed, though I would speculate on High Anglican. Another reason, again at least in this novel, is that Eversleigh may as well have been a lawyer or a doctor or unemployed, for that matter.The religious aspect is negligible.
Still, the plot is a good one. A retired colonel, who is something more than a scoundrel, asks his estranged family to give him another chance as a father. For reasons unclear at the start, they all do come to spend the weekend with him, despite each of them despising him for various reasons. As is to be expected, the not-so-good colonel finishes the first night of the weekend dead to the last drop.
The Padre had been invited as a sort of leavening for the group. He ends up investigating the murder, discovering what is in some respects an unusual motive for killing, and learning who the murderer was. An interesting case that makes one not reluctant to read the other novels in which The Padre appears — for the detectival aspect, not for his role as a clergyman.
The Peter Eversleigh (The Padre) series —
The Crime Philosopher (n.) Paul 1945.
Savarin’s Shadow (n.) Paul 1947.
The Dark Mind (n.) Paul 1948.
Traitor’s Tide (n.) Paul 1948.
The Courtway Case (n.) Paul 1951.
The Lipstick Clue (n.) Paul 1954.
Besides a long list of books under his own name, Richard Goyne (1902-1957) is credited with another two dozen or so as by John Courage, plus a scattered handful under the names Aileen Grey, Scarlet Grey, Kitty Lorraine, Paul Renin & Richard Standish.
Other series characters under his own name are: Paul Templeton (13), Sexton Blake (2), and Supt. “Tubby” Greene (2).
July 29th, 2011 at 7:59 am
I remember obtaining several of “The Padre and Pamela” (as they were billed) series for Bill over the years. I never read one.
July 29th, 2011 at 9:45 am
From the review, it sounds as though this was the first he came across, doesn’t it? He was impressed enough to start looking for others.
As far as I know, I don’t have any books by Richard Goyne, any with the Padre or not, or as by John Courage.
The two Sexton Blake paperbacks he wrote were early in his career, 1933-34, just before his Paul Templeton books started to appear in hardcover.
But the first of his crime fiction came even before the Blake’s, in 1924, when was only 22.