Thu 12 May 2016
COLIN WATSON – Charity Ends at Home. Putnam, US, hardcover, 1968. Berkley, US, paperback, 1969; Dell/Murder Ink, paperback, US, 1983. First published in the UK by Eyre & Spottiswoode, hardcover, 1968.
Flaxborough seems to be a quiet sort of town, if such a description can, after all, apply to a place that attracts much more than its share of murders, with only mild cases of eccentricity afflicting the majority of its inhabitants. Nothing gets done right away of its own accord, for, you see, “Perhaps It’ll Go Away” is not a bad motto to live by — thinking in this case primarily of Chief Constable Chubb, who is the first to get one of the unsigned letters sent to various townspeople warning them somehow of the writer’s impending doom.
Inspector Purbright seems a little more alert than some of the other folks around, but it does seem a little more than miraculous that he can make anything at all of this affair, befuddled as it quickly becomes by an incipient war building up between various charity organizations on the streets of Flaxborough and by a persistent and mendacious private detective all the way from London.
It’s a nice little scheme that’s been put into action — bewildering in spots, while very easily seen through in others. I was fooled nicely, I have to admit, by the above-mentioned letters, but not in the least, I hasten to add, by who done it.
Bibliographic Notes: This is the fifth of 12 Inspector Purbright novels, of which one was never published in the US, and of those which were, many had title changes. Four of them were adapted into made-for-TV movies as part of the 1977 BBC series Murder Most English: A Flaxborough Chronicle. I reviewed the series here on this blog almost seven years ago.
May 12th, 2016 at 9:02 pm
Purbright’s cases were a delight. the Ealing comedy school of English mystery fiction.
May 12th, 2016 at 10:46 pm
I’ve been reading this old review over, and while I can’t see it, even reading through the lines, back then — or around then — I wasn’t a big fan of comedy or humor in the mystery fiction I was reading.
As I recall, and I could be way off on this, when I tried another of Purbright’s novels, I didn’t get very far with it. No matter. Either way, this is just one more in a long list of series I need to sample again.
May 13th, 2016 at 10:31 am
This is exactly the kind of humor I enjoy in mystery novels. Your review doesn’t mention that this book is the second appearance of his other series character, the con artist Lucilla Teatime. I enjoyed this one for its satire on pet owners, but the book that is much better is the one that introduces Lucilla — LONELYHEART 4122. Highly recommended. Miss Teatime appears in eight out of Watson’s twelve mystery/crime novels.
May 13th, 2016 at 10:36 am
Steve, Maybe you just have to be in the right mood for the books. Colin Watson also wrote an interesting book about mysteries, SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE.
May 13th, 2016 at 12:57 pm
JF
MISS LONELYHEART 4122 was my first Watson book. It was made into a mediocre movie of the week and moved to the US with Rosalind Russell and Doug Fairbanks Jr. if I recall correctly.
Randy,
SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE is one of the best books on the thriller fiction of the between the war years if only for the delightful cartoons it reprints. I particularly liked the lower middle class couple telling the school guidance counselor the career they have chosen for their son is Master Criminal and the “Noon Edgar Wallace, is in” from the bookseller.
Watson has an interesting, and I think wise, take on the casual racism and xenophobia of the reading public that I think still has application today, pointing out how England differed from much of Europe by leaving it on the pages of books and not carrying it into the streets as happened so many other places. It’s a telling sociological point about popular culture in England and the US vrs the European model.
Steve,
Humor is entirely subjective, either it is funny to you or not. I was lucky that I stumbled onto Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer’s John J. Malone and Hildy Withers stories, Phoebe Atwood Taylor (in both incarnations), Edmund Crispin, and Leo Bruce’s Sgt. Beef fairly early and then of course the Lockridge’s and the North’s and Hammett’s Thin Man so it was natural I gravitated to the humorous mystery early.
The humor in Watson is very British though, and might take a bit of adjusting to.
With me a good deal of it depends on mood. Sometimes I am more in the mood for humor than others and some writers are better suited to my taste than others. I know for instance, many readers find Joyce Porter’s Dover too obnoxious to enjoy the books.
Today I would rather reread Watson or one of Tim Heald’s Simon Bognor adventures than the latest grim and gritty ultra violent British Noir entry that are too common for my taste.
But I do think we are more likely to appreciate humor as we mature.
I recall when John Gardner was doing Boysie Oakes I wished he would write a serious novel, then when he started doing serious thrillers I wished he would lighten up and return to Boysie.