Tue 9 May 2017
A 1001 Midnights Review: ERNEST BRAMAH – Max Carrados.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[10] Comments
by Thomas Baird
ERNEST BRAMAH – Max Carrados. Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1914. Hyperion Press, US, hardcover, 1975. Moran Press, softcover, December 2015. All 26 Max Carrados short stories are included in The Collected Max Carrados Investigations: The Cases of the Renowned Blind Edwardian Detective, Leonaur, hardcover/paperback, 2013.
For some years it was thought that Ernest Bramah was the pseudonym of some other mystery writer who was doing double duty; or, alternatively, that the pen name represented a group trying its hands at a specialized type of story. Eventually, the author revealed himself (a little bit), and what he revealed was that the pseudonym stood for Ernest Bramah Smith.
He was extremely self-effacing; however, details are plentiful about the life and adventures of his greatest creation, Max Carrados, the first and probably the best blind detective in fiction.
Carrados was very much in the Great Detective mold. Even though blind, his personality dominates the stories. He is sophisticated, cynical, and whimsical, and he awes friends, clients, and enemies with feats of subtle brilliance, “seeing” what no blind man can see.
Carrados lives at the Turrets in Richmond (just west of London), surrounded by his menage of secretary, young, brash Annesley Greatorex, and valet,the solemnly decorous Parkinson. He is interested in crimes of originality, and is called upon to solve cases of arson, madness, embezzlement, jewel burglary, a divorce murder, the theft of one of England’s greatest relics, a post-office robbery connected with Irish outrages, and to thwart German naval spies. A commentator has said that the setting of these stories is much closer to Raymond Chandler’s “mean streets” than to the unreal English country house of Agatha Christie.
The Carrados stories are an Edwardian tour de force, and Ellery Queen called Max Carrados “one of the ten best volumes of detective shorts ever written.” The eight stories in this collection contain the inevitable meeting between Carrados and disbarred lawyer turned inquiry agent Louis Carlyle, who becomes his “Watson.”
The tales range from a problem in numismatics (one of Bramah’s own little enthusiasms), to train-wrecking tinged with racism, to looting of safe deposits as a result of religious enthusiasm. The problems are logical, the characterizations are excellent, and the backgrounds are exceptional.
In the much-anthologized “Tragedy at Brookbend Cottage,” a man proposes to remove his wife by the latest scientific methods. Of course, Carrados intervenes, using clues only a blind man can find, and brings the case to its ironic conclusion.
Critics have praised the stories highly, and the two other collections — The Eyes of Max Carrados (1923) and Max Carrados Mysteries (1927) — are also well worth attention, although the later stories tend to get ponderous and are uneven in quality. The only Max Carrados novel, The Bravo of London (1934), proves conclusively that Bramah was a good short-story writer.
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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.
May 10th, 2017 at 5:21 am
Amazon has the Complete Max Carrados on Kindle at a bargain price.
There are similar collections just as cheap for Jacques Futrelle’s Thinking Machine stories, and Arthur Morrison’s Martin Hewitt tales, of a similar vintage.
May 10th, 2017 at 9:06 am
Thanks, Jeff. 99 cents is a bargain price all right. I seldom make note of Kindle editions when I post a review, but in this case, I think this one needed to be pointed out.
I also note that this Kindle book contains 42 stories, which is significantly higher than the 26 in the printed version of the “complete” Max Carrados book I found.
May 10th, 2017 at 9:09 am
From Wikipedia:
As published in book form, the series consists of:
Max Carrados (Methuen & Co, London 1914)
The Coin of Dionysius
The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem
The Tragedy at Brookbend Cottage
The Clever Mrs. Straithwaite
The Last Exploit of Harry the Actor
The Tilling Shaw Mystery
The Comedy at Fountain Cottage
The Game Played in the Dark
The Eyes of Max Carrados (Grant Richards, London 1923)
The Virginiola Fraud
The Disappearance of Marie Severe
The Secret of Dunstan’s Tower
The Mystery of the Poisoned Dish of Mushrooms
The Ghost of Massingham Mansions
The Missing Actress Sensation
The Ingenious Mr. Spinola
The Kingsmouth Spy Case
The Eastern Mystery
The Specimen Case (Hodder and Stoughton, London 1924)
The Bunch of Violets
Max Carrados Mysteries (Hodder and Stoughton, London 1927)
“The Secret of Headlam Height
The Mystery of the Vanished Petition Crown
The Holloway Flat Tragedy
The Curious Circumstances of the Two Left Shoes
The Ingenious Mind of Mr. Rigby Lacksome
The Crime at the House in Culver Street
The Strange Case of Cyril Bycourt
The Missing Witness Sensation
The Bravo of London (a novel) (Cassell & Co, London 1934)
For a total of 26 short stories and one novel.
May 10th, 2017 at 9:12 am
Truth in advertising. One of the reviewers of the ebook on Amazon says:
“…in reality, it contains 26 short stories and a 16-chapter book. 26+16=42.”
May 10th, 2017 at 9:22 am
Most of these Bramah tales are also free in web page (HTML) format,
on Project Gutenberg Australia.
May 10th, 2017 at 10:11 am
The review mentions him being the “best” blind detective, without reading these stories, I always thought the Bayard Kendrick Duncan Maclain PI novels were very well done.
May 10th, 2017 at 12:58 pm
Yes, I’m glad you brought the Maclain stories up. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read (not many) but I think they’re more realistic. Max Carrados sometimes seems like a superhero in terms of, say, reading print on a newspaper with his fingertips.
May 10th, 2017 at 2:59 pm
I had read somewhere the Kendrick (Baynard not Bayard as written above, forgot an “n”) only had Maclain do things that he had heard that a blind person could actually do. One example was riding in a car and hearing a change in the wind pattern which let him know a space was open for parking.
May 10th, 2017 at 9:35 pm
That last line is all too true. Stick to the short stories, which range from brilliant to just good, but if you don’t know Brahah or Max Carrados, then by all means meet him.
Someone has to mention Bramah was better known as the faux Chinese philosopher Kai Lung.
April 14th, 2020 at 6:18 am
[…] Critics have praised the stories [Max Carrados (1914)]; highly, and the two other collections — The Eyes of Max Carrados (1923) and Max Carrados Mysteries (1927) — are also well worth attention, although the later stories tend to get ponderous and are uneven in quality. The only Max Carrados novel, The Bravo of London (1934), proves conclusively that Bramah was a good short-story writer. (Source: Mystery*File) […]