Fri 17 Sep 2010
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: LEO BRUCE – Case for Three Detectives.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[8] Comments
by Bill Pronzini:
LEO BRUCE – Case for Three Detectives. Stokes, US, hardcover, 1937. Hardcover reprint: Academy Chicago, October 1980; trade paperback, 1985. British edition: Geoffrey Bles, hardcover, 1936.
Case for Three Detectives is at once a locked room mystery worthy of John Dickson Carr and an affectionate spoof of the Golden Age detectives created by Sayers, Christie, and Chesterton.
When Mary Thurston is found in her bedroom, dead of a slashed throat, during a weekend party at her Sussex country house, it seems to all concerned an impossible, almost supernatural crime:
The bedroom door was double-bolted from the inside; there are no secret passages or other such claptrap; the only windows provide no means of entrance or exit; and the knife that did the job is found outside the house.
The following morning, three of “those indefatigably brilliant private investigators who seem to be always handy when a murder has been committed” begin to arrive. The first is Lord Simon Plimsoll (Lord Peter Wimsey): “… the length of his chin, like most other things about him, was excessive,” the narrator, Townsend, observes.
The second is the Frenchman Amer Picon (Hercule Poirot): “His physique was frail, and topped by a large egg-shaped head, a head so much and so often egg-shaped that I was surprised to find a nose and mouth in it at all, but half-expected its white surface to break and release a chick.”
And the third is Monsignor Smith (Father Brown), “a small human pudding.” The three famous sleuths sniff around, unearth various clues, and arrive at separate (and elaborate) conclusions, each accusing a different member of the house party as Mary Thurston’s slayer.
But of course none of them is right. The real solution is provided by Sergeant Beef of the local constabulary, “a big red-faced man of forty-eight or fifty, with a straggling ginger moustache, and a look of rather beery benevolence.”
Along the way there is a good deal of gentle humor and some sharp observations on the methods of Wimsey, Poirot, and Father Brown. The prose is consistently above average, and the solution to the locked room murder is both simple and satisfying.
Sergeant Beef is featured in seven other novels by Leo Bruce (a pseudonym of novelist, playwright, poet, and scholar Rupert Croft-Cooke), most of which have been reissued here by Academy Chicago in trade paperback. Among them are Case Without a Corpse (1937), Case with Four Clowns (1939), and Case with Ropes and Rings (1940). Each is likewise ingeniously plotted and diverting.
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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.
September 17th, 2010 at 1:46 am
There are a couple of reasons why I chose this review to post here this evening. One is as a followup to Bill Deeck’s review of The Murdered Cliché, a virtually unknown book in which the leading character is, as Bill described him, “Mercure Poitrine, whose waxed mustaches and idiosyncrasies may remind some readers of another Gallic detective.”
In the comments that followed, David Vineyard mentioned this one by Leo Bruce as being closely related:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=4162#comments
David mentioned a few other spoofs, sendups, parodies or pastiches in a similar vein, but my hopes for others to chip in with others have so far been dashed.
My favorite book in this particular category was not mentioned. I suppose I could mention it myself, but I’m still hoping I don’t have to.
As for the second reason, referred to in my first paragraph, I’m reading another book by Leo Bruce right now, and I’m enjoying it immensely. Why Bruce doesn’t get more credit than he does as an A Number One Plus example of a Golden Age writer, I don’t know.
See also Maryell Cleary’s recent review (last November) of JACK ON THE GALLOWS TREE, a Carolus Deene detective novel Bruce wrote in 1960. By pure chance — I didn’t realize it until now — it’s the same book I’m reading, and so far she’s nailed it perfectly.
September 17th, 2010 at 4:57 am
A grand book. The satire on the Golden Age detective novel and the three detective is wonderful and there’s a good locked room mystery on top of that.
All the Sergeant Beef books are funny and nicely plotted. The Carolus Deenes are not as broadly funny but they are often dryly witty with well-plotted mysteries.
Rupert Croft-Cooke didn’t think much of his detective novels, wanting instead to be a “great writer.” But in my view his best works (and what remains in print) are by Leo Bruce.
September 17th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I love the Bruce novels, both Beef and Deane. As for his other name his best book was likely SEVEN THUNDERS filmed THE BEASTS OF MARSEILLES with Stephen Boyd and James Robertson Justice and his short story “Banquo’s Chair” which was adapted for ALFRED HITCHOCK PRESENTS with John Williams, and I think directed by Hitch himself (he directed 25 of this and AH HOUR). I’ve also read THIEF and I think one other, though the name escapes me. The think “Banquo’s Chair” was also adapted as a play.
I wonder if the fact that he so spot on skewered Sayers, Chesteron, and Christie accounted for the lack of popularity of the Beef tales? They really are remarkable, funny, spot on, and genuine Golden Age fair play tec tales. His Bruce novels are among the most amusing and entertaining books of his time period and hold up well today.
September 17th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
The Beef books seem to have gotten generally good reviews and some were reprinted in the US. But I don’t think they were as appreciated as they should have been. Maybe the humor was a bit ahead of its time.
I was disappointed Julian Symons never mentioned Leo Bruce in Bloody Murder, even though he had favorably reviewed his books in the 1950s and 1960s in the Times. On the other hand, once asked to name his favorite detective novel, Barzun named Bruce’s Furious Old Women. Barzun liked the Deenes better than the broader Beefs (I think Bill Pronzini takes the opposite view).
September 17th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Looks like I have to bring this book up myself.
The book Murder in Pastiche Or Nine Detectives All at Sea by Marion Mainwaring (1954) the case is solved (or greatly meddled around with) by Mallory King (Ellery Queen), Atlas Poireau (Hercule Poirot), Trajan Beare (Nero Wolfe), Spike Bludgeon (Mike Hammer), Sir John Nappleby (Sir John Appleby), Jerry Pason (Perry Mason), Lord Simon Quinsey (Lord Peter Wimsey), Miss Fan Sliver (Maud Silver) and Broderick Tournier (Roderick Alleyn).
When I read i, I must have been in my early teens, and perhaps never since. Looking back, though, I am surprised that I recognized the counterparts of all nine — or at least most of them!
September 18th, 2010 at 6:30 am
Steve
That’s a new one on me, and one I will have to look up. Surprising how many of the parody/pastiche made it into print and seemed to do pretty well.
October 28th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
[…] Case For Three Detectives by Leo Bruce — Discussed here recently. Sgt. Beef, a solid and seemingly plodding policeman shows up three spoofs of famous […]
June 30th, 2021 at 9:36 am
[…] Case For Three Detectives has been reviewed, among others, by Bill Pronzini at Mystery File, Bev at My Reader’s Block, Patrick At the Scene of the Crime, Nick Fuller at The […]