Sat 5 Jun 2010
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: ELIZABETH CADELL – The Corner Shop.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[4] Comments
William F. Deeck
ELIZABETH CADELL – The Corner Shop. Morrow, US, hardcover, 1967. Reprint paperback, Bantam, 1970. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, 1966.
If I had been asked, which I wasn’t, I doubt that The Corner Shop would be on my list of “crime fiction.” My opinion would be the same about the works of P. G. Wodehouse that are in Hubin’s bibliography.
But since Hubin led me to discover Cadell and others may discover the Master through the bibliography, I shall not complain.
When Mrs. Lucille Abbey, who owns a secretarial agency with an excellent reputation, has had three of her top employees precipitately abandon a position. When she goes, at great and amusing physical effort, to discover why there was dissatisfaction, she meets Professor Hallam, whose specialty is lungs and who thinks she is applying for the secretarial position.
He tells her that she wouldn’t suit him. “For one thing, you’re decorative, and while that wouldn’t distract me, it probably distracts you.”
Professor Hallam is trying to transcribe his father’s notes but is being badgered by a Frenchman who wants to purchase Hallam’s mother’s paintings, which are worthless, in the Professor’s opinion.
The paintings turn out to have disappeared, Mrs. Abbey goes to Paris to babysit her aunt’s shop and encounters the woman who may have stolen the paintings, Mrs. Abbey puts in an appeal for the Professor’s presence, and the Professor usually an unworldly man, gets everything straightened out, with a happy ending for some and a not disappointing ending for others.
The Corner Shop is similar to Wodehouse’s works. It is, as all of his are, a farce romance or a romantic farce, with a plot simple yet complex. While they haven’t a great deal of depth, Cadell’s characters are nonetheless interesting and believable.
She doesn’t write as well as Wodehouse. Who does? She’s a couple of rungs down the ladder, but still very near the top for this sort of book.
Consider it crime fiction and enjoy it. Or don’t consider it crime fiction and enjoy it.
Editorial Comment: There are some 15 books by Elizabeth Cadell (1903-1989) under her own name in Al Hubin’s Revised Crime Fiction IV, and another three she wrote under the name of Harriet Ainsworth.
You may have gathered (I did) that her books were included by Al with an asterisk, indicating only marginal crime content. Not so. Only one is, and that one is not this one. (On the other hand, she was the author of 52 novels in all, so it’s clear that crime and/or mystery fiction was hardly her primary playing field.)
There is a website dedicated to her and her work, which is where I obtained the information just above. This page consists of covers of titles A through D only, but you can easily find the others.
Another review of The Corner Shop can be found online here; two long paragraphs are quoted.
June 5th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
If I had to describe Wodehouse or Cadell the one word that comes to mind is ‘civilized.’ Civilized humor, characters, plot — civilized in that special British sense of the word.
After that the word that occurs in droll, and then much simpler to say than achieve, very very funny. And when a book is civilized, droll, and very funny, who cares if it is exactly a crime story or not?
As for her not quite being Wodehouse, who is? That’s a bit like saying a writer is not quite Hammett, not quite Chandler, or not quite Shakespeare. Just the comparison is the highest of compliments.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Sad to say, I know her books only from the Bantam paperbacks in the US. Those that suggest Romance Fiction only, I imagine I have always passed over quickly.
Those that say Romantic Suspense on the front cover, such as THE CORNER SHOP, I have a special marked box that I’ve set aside to keep them in. Unfortunately for me, apparently, I have never taken any out.
June 5th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I read a few by accident. Nothing else to read and they were lying around in some books of my mothers. Just goes to show you can’t judge a book strictly by the cover or the packaging.
I’m not sure American publishers knew exactly what to make of a writer like Cadell, she didn’t fit as neatly into the categories they like to fit fiction into.
Over the years, and it was a hard lesson, I’ve learned to sometimes ignore the packaging, but I’m sure there are plenty I missed then and miss now simply because at some level you have to judge a book by its cover.
You can’t read everything, and you can’t even sample everything, but luckily a review like this sometimes offers you a chance to correct the mistake.
June 10th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Hello, I appreciate the comments on one of Elizabeth Cadell’s novels. Many of her characters were real people (names changed) and she got to the point quite quickly. The romance added to the fun but was not the main reason for her stories. It is interesting that Mr. Deeck compares EC’s style to P G Wodehouse. EC was a big fan of PW. But I have to disagree with Mr. Deeck. I feel that EC’s writings were every bit as good as Wodehouse, *not several rungs down the ladder. Of course my opinion could very well be biased since I started the Official Elizabeth Cadell Fan Club and website dedicated to her works a few years ago. I was also instrumental in publishing her Biography written by her daughter, Janet Reynolds, available for sale on her website, http://www.elizabethcadell.com . That said, I do thank you for the review. -Carol Kuchar USA