Mon 4 Apr 2016
CYRIL HARE – The Wind Blows Death. Perennial Library, paperback, 1982. Originally published as When the Wind Blows, Faber & Faber, UK, hardcover, 1949. First published in the US under the paperback title by Little, Brown, hardcover, 1950. Published in the US under the British title by Garland, hardcover, 1976.
In A Catalogue of Crime, Barzun and Taylor hail this as a masterpiece, certainly the best of Hare’s mystery novels. Realizing that their basis for judgment is, was, and always will be how a book measures up as a detective story, it’s easy to see how they came to such a conclusion.
It’s a good book, no doubt about it, but I have some small cavils to make about it. Most of them may be completely personal, but then again, what do you think?
For the moment, though, let’s start this review over, from the beginning. According to what I deduce from page 84 [and now confirmed], this is the third case of murder that amateur detective Francis Pettigrew found himself involved in. In this book his primary role is as the honorary treasurer to the Markshire Orchestral Society. Murdered is the featured soloist for one of their performances.
A good many curious circumstances surround the murder, many of them having a good deal to do with alibis, hampered by an abundance of semi-secret sexual dalliances of varying degrees of ardor. Helping Pettigrew sort it all through (although nominally it is the other way around) are an aggressive new inspector named Trimble and his rather more laid-back superior, Chief Constable MacWilliam.
The characterizations are fine — although in essence perhaps more reflective of stereotypes than actual personages — and the plotting is ingenious. As I stated above, I’d like to raise a few objections, but if you haven’t read the book, please use your own judgment before plowing onward:
2) Throughout the investigation very little discussion of the motive is made. Naturally, it’s a key to the solution. Again, an obscure bit of English law is needed to substantiate the matter. Unfair, I say.
3) There is no satisfactory reason given as to why the killer felt so compelled to come up with such an elaborate plan for doing away with the victim, except, of course, the requirements of the story. (The more complicated the knot, the harder it is to undo.)
4) And this is the one that bothered me the most. Maybe you’ll think nothing of it, but when Pettigrew and MacWilliam sit down and begin discussing the case on page 186, all of a sudden the reader is left out of their deliberations. Here’s where I was pulled up short and forcibly reminded — not unlike being bit over the head with a blunt instrument — that this is, after all, nothing more than a detective story, and we’re only playing a game.
5) Which reminds me of my final point: Nobody, but nobody, ever expresses anything more than passing regret, if that, over the death of the victim.
Other than that, I liked the book fine.
Rating: B minus.
April 4th, 2016 at 8:48 pm
Point number 1 reminds me of my own observation of S.S. Van Dine’s THE BISHOP MURDER CASE, it is perfectly fair play if the reader is familiar with German criminal psychology, German opera based on Goethe, and the properties of heavy water — if not …
Still, I like Hare and enjoy the Pettigrew mysteries for what they are, often clever, and often entertainingly and literately written exercises in the grandest game in the world.
April 4th, 2016 at 10:18 pm
The primary reason I enjoy old-fashioned puzzle mysteries is playing the game along with the author. Every once in a while, though, I let the illusion slip, and once I do, I write reviews like this one.
April 5th, 2016 at 2:33 pm
The truth is the writers I tend to like the most of the Golden Age group often cheated; Christie, Carr, MacDonald, Hare … It wasn’t merely misdirection by clever means, as often as not clues depended on esoteric knowledge no average reader could be expected to possess, like Sherlock Holmes encyclopedic knowledge of tobaccos and soil (though no one ever accused Holmes or Doyle of fair play).
I have read a handful where you had an honest chance of beating the writer to the end, but when I look at my favorites, the ones I reread as books and not just puzzles then I have to confess there is little fair about them. I really don’t think if one of the clues relies on a knowledge of MANON LESCAULT or the exact amount of time it takes for a certain cotton thread to burn you can honestly call it a fair play mystery. Even if the sleuth is established to have specialized knowledge he needs to share it with the reader before springing the killer for it to be fair play.
Then there are the ones where the writer gets it wrong such as a short where Christie mistakenly believes ventriloquism works if the ventriloquist has his back turned to the person he is fooling. For that matter Poirot usually knows who the killer is from the start by almost psychic forsight and inhuman insight into character. Several books have him trying to save the murderer from committing the crime and then reluctantly finding enough hard evidence to corner him and expose him once he has. Nothing really fair about it in that sense.
Oddly I was impressed by, of all things, a Van Wyck Mason Colonel (then Captain) North mystery where he must solve a murder in a remote location and has to manufacture all the scientific investigative tools himself, finding the right kind of cotton that wouldn’t scratch the bullet for a ballistics test and powder to take decent fingerprints and chemicals to check for blood. I would have liked to have seen Ellery Queen or Peter Wimsey try that.
Then there is the famous POISONED CHOCOLATES case where everyone guesses every possible scenario and the only one left is the solution, again clever, but far from fair.
Even misdirection can be cheating, There is a famous Ellery Queen novel (no name so no spoiler) where the police use references for a certain clue no police report would use and then Ellery springs the simple reference on them for a big reveal about mid way in the book, It’s not fair, because in referring to a color no police report would have referred to something as salmon when they meant pink. An actual police report would have referred to the items in question and blue and pink and thus spoiled Ellery’s big moment. To me, that isn’t fair play.
I’m certainly not arguing against your reasoning for reading and enjoying them. In fact I tend to operate on the idea that if I notice they are hoodwinking me while reading the book has failed to that extent, because for me the art is to keep me enthralled enough I don’t notice there is a discrepancy. I may recognize it after the fact as I did in the case of the Queen and most of the Christie’s and many Carr novels, but in most cases if the writer is good enough I will pretend I have a fair chance of solving it even though I know I don’t.
September 3rd, 2023 at 11:28 pm
[…] Mystery*File […]