Tue 12 Jan 2010
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: BRIAN FLYNN – The Billiard-Room Mystery.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
William F. Deeck
BRIAN FLYNN – The Billiard-Room Mystery. Macrae Smith, US, hardcover, 1929. Originally published in the UK by John Hamilton, hardcover, 1927.
It is Cricket Week at Considine Manor. Gathered there are the friends of the son of Sir Charles Considine, and among them is Anthony Bathurst. Bathurst at this point had done no detecting — this is the first novel in which he appears — but he believes he’d be good at it. His opportunity arises when one of the cricketers is found dead in the billiard room, strangled and then stabbed.
The regular policeman is beyond his depth, and even Bathurst struggles for a while putting the clues together. Not quite fair play here, I’d contend, and the writing is Boys’ Own Paper style for the most part, but it is an adequate first effort close on the heels of a similar and certainly a more famous novel written two years earlier by another mystery novelist.
One does wonder how much influence was wielded by that earlier novel, but Flynn, let’s face it, does not come close to his predecessor.
An interesting sidelight is Bathurst’s comments on fictional detectives. Like Sherlock Holmes, Bathurst has great contempt for Lecoq, although he admits that Poe’s Dupin wasn’t so bad. When asked if he thinks Holmes stands alone, Bathurst replies:
Someone mentions Bernard Capes’ “Baron” of The Skeleton Key — regrettably unknown to me — G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, and H. C. Bailey’s Reginald Fortune. Bathurst responds:
Even keeping in mind that Bathurst was talking about detectives who reason, it is a commentary on such judgments that he gave the lowest ratings to the two — Poirot and Father Brown — who remain popular today. Still, how many of us, asked for our own preferences, would do as well after sixty years had passed?
Let me be frank: I’m still flogging the apparently moribund carcasses of Bailey, Ellery Queen, and S. S. Van Dine.
Editorial Comment: Mystery readers on this side of the Atlantic may be surprised to learn that Anthony Bathurst and author Brian Flynn combined on well over 50 (fictional) murder cases solved by the former and chronicled by the latter. Only a small handful were published in this country. For a complete list, see my review of The Sharp Quillet posted here, earlier on this blog.
Does anyone recognize the famous novel by another writer that Bill refers to at the end of the second paragraph?
January 12th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I’ve read one or two of the Bathurst books, and found them minor entertainment. Oddly most of his critical comments of other fictional sleuths apply to him.
Re the book referred to the closest I can come to is Van Dine’s BENSON MURDER CASE, but that’s only one year before this.
January 13th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Could he be referring to Anthony Berkeley’s THE LAYTON COURT MYSTERY (1925), debut of sleuth Roger Sheringham? I haven’t read this one.
And I’d never heard of Brian Flynn!
January 13th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Mike
I didn’t have a clue myself, but I think you may have the answer. Both detectives are what you might call amateur criminologists, the kind of fellow that Scotland Yard might call upon whenever they get stuck on a complicated case.
I wish I could say that I’ve read more of Sheringham’s cases. Those I have were so long ago that I don’t remember a word of them!
— Steve
January 14th, 2010 at 12:42 am
The Sheringham is very likely the book in question. I never really got into the Sheringham books.
Berkley originally meant him to be obnoxious and something of a send up of the genre in the sense of Bentley’s Philip Trent, but once the books caught on he had to make him more likable. I know THE POISON CHOCOLATES CASE is a masterpiece, but I much prefer the shorter version, and much prefer Berkeley as Francis Isles or without Sheringham.
The Bathurst books are minor fare at any rate. I don’t think they get much more than a sentence in most histories of the genre. He and John Bentley’s Sir Richard Herrival never seemed much ore than an afterthought to the better known sleuths of the age.
March 17th, 2017 at 4:04 pm
I think the book alluded to by the reviewer is Roger Ackroyd (narrator), but it may be Layton Court (Watson). This book is not fair play, and the end is surprising but completely daft — I have no idea whether you’re meant to take it seriously or as parody. There handling of the clues and the final argument are risible: the cigar is said to be crucial, but isn’t associated to the villain in the narrative; the dressing of the victim and the faking of footprints could have been done by any one; the clinching clue of the knot is withheld from the reader. having said all this, I am still curious to read further books from this author (just to see how bonkers they might be).
March 17th, 2017 at 4:14 pm
Harry
Now you do have me intrigued. I’ll have to see if I can’t find a copy — an inexpensive one, though!