Mon 20 Apr 2009
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: E. C. BENTLEY – Trent’s Last Case.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Authors , Reviews[4] Comments
by Edward D. Hoch:
E. C. BENTLEY – Trent’s Last Case.
Thomas Nelson, UK, hardcover, 1913. First published in the US as The Woman in Black, Century, 1913. (Later US editions have the British title.) Reprinted many times in both hardcover and paperback. Also available as an online etext.
Silent film: Broadwest, 1920 (Gregory Scott as Philip Trent; Richard Garrick, director). Also (with partial sound): Fox, 1929 (Raymond Griffith as Philip Trent; Howard Hawks, director). Sound film: British Lion, 1952 (Michael Wilding as Philip Trent; Herbert Wilcox, director).
One of the true cornerstones in the development of the modern detective novel, Trent’s Last Case has received high praise for more than seventy years. G.K. Chesterton (to whom the book was dedicated) called it “the finest detective story of modem times,” while Ellery Queen praised it as “the first great modern detective novel.”
Later critics have tempered their praise somewhat, and Dilys Winn’s Murder Ink even lists the book in its Hall of Infamy among the ten worst mysteries of all time.
But there can be no doubt as to the book’s importance, especially in the character of detective Philip Trent. Before Bentley’s creation of Trent, fictional detectives had always been of the infallible, virtually superhuman type exemplified by C. Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes.
English artist Philip Trent, investigating the murder of a wealthy American financier for a London newspaper, represents the birth of naturalism in the detective story. He falls in love with the victim’s widow (the woman in black of the original American title), who is the chief suspect in the case, and he is far from infallible as a detective.
Bentley wrote the book as something of an exposure of detective stories, a reaction against the artificial plots and sterile characters of his predecessors. But despite Trent’s fallibility, his detective work is skillful. The ending, with its surprise twists, is eminently satisfying.
Though slow-paced by modem standards, the book has a graceful prose and quiet humor that have stood up well with the passage of time. Mystery readers were not to see anything remotely like Trent’s Last Case until Agatha Christie’s initial appearance with The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920.
Happily, Philip Trent’s last case wasn’t really his last, though E. C. Bentley waited twenty-three years before producing a sequel, Trent’s Own Case, written in collaboration with H. Warner Allen.
This time Trent himself is the chief suspect in a murder case, and if the book falls short of its predecessor, it is still a skillful and attractive novel.
Bentley followed it with thirteen short stories about Trent, written mainly for the Strand magazine, twelve of which were collected in Trent Intervenes (1938), a classic volume of anthology favorites. A final thriller, Elephant’s Work (1950), is more in the style of John Buchan and is less successful.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Both “Trent’s Last Case” and “Trent Intervenes” are detective classics. “Trent’s Own Case” is OK. Have never read “Elephant’s Work”. It has been panned by some many people, that have never gotten around to reading it.
On the 1929 film of “Trent’s Last Case”. This is directed by the great Howard Hawks. Unfortunately, the only known surving print is missing the last 20 minutes… Guess this means a DVD is not in the works soon! Maybe someone could put it out as an extra on a DVD of another movie.
The print is in the Library of Congress, in Washington DC. I have never seen it, or the other film versions.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Of the three versions, only the last one has been made commercially available, and that only in the UK (Region 2). I’d really like to see the 1929 version, but a detective story missing the last 20 minutes? I don’t think so!
— Steve
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:40 pm
I liked Trent’s Own Case better than Mike, but likely because of the thriller elements that may have put him off. All the business on the Continent was fine with me, though Barzun and Taylor both found it annoying.
Despite Hawks involvement I would think it unlikely that the silent film will show up on DVD, but I think the talkie with Michael Wilding may have been on TCM at some point. From all accounts it isn’t much of a film, but then if you know the book you can see how it might be difficult to make a good film from it.
April 3rd, 2020 at 2:47 pm
[…] Last Case has been reviewed, among others, at the crime segments, Mystery*File, crossexaminingcrime, A Penguin a Week, and Past […]