Tue 5 Jul 2022
HILLARY WAUGH – Murder on the Terrace. Foulsham, UK, hardcover, 1961. No US edition.
One of Waugh’s quality police procedurals and a fairly early one at that. It precedes the Fred Fellows series (though it was published later than the first of them) and stars big, tough, apparently unimaginat1ve police chief, Amos Camp.
It is interesting to note that in the recent article by Waugh on his character Fellows (in The Great Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler; Little Brown, 1978), he refers to Camp as “the father of Fred Fellows” and so he is, in a purely evolutionary way.
The crime that he is called upon to investigate is the strange killing of well-to-do Phyllis Slayton in her home in the exclusive district of the small town of Marshton [somewhere in New England].
Her husband and neighbours comprise the suspects and first one arrest is made and then another. But the pieces don’t fit until Camp (“I don’t think, I dig”) has painstakingly collected all the evidence together, sifted through it and produced the solution.
Camp is an excellent invention but the story. doesn’t have the impact of either Last Seen Wearing or the underrated A Rag and a Bone. But it is a Waugh procedural and who could really ask for more than that? No one has ever done them better than the master and the real mysteries are therefore:
1. Why has he now abandoned them? (Well, I suppose that all good things have to come to an end.)
2. Why has no American publisher put out this book? (And for that I can think of no reason whatsoever.)
___
Final footnote. In all my years of collecting Ive only once come across this book — and I’m sitting tight on that one.
July 5th, 2022 at 11:07 pm
No other copies then, no copies now, anywhere on the Internet.
July 5th, 2022 at 11:12 pm
For more information about Mr. Waugh and his mystery writing career, his obituary in the New York Times is extremely helpful:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/books/27waugh.html
July 6th, 2022 at 4:17 am
That reminds me that I need to read the next in the Fred Fallows series after the brilliant Sleep Long, My Love. I find Last Seen Wearing to be overhyped.
July 6th, 2022 at 8:42 pm
Ironically the personification of Fellows on screen was British cop star Jack Warner in JIGSAW which moves the series to a small coastal town in the UK but is otherwise highly faithful to its source.
Waugh’s procedurals, unlike so many others, not only focus on the police element but he’s also a fine mystery writer who seldom fails to provide a solid mystery to be solved. There are others more colorful than Fellows, some more mundane and realistic, but almost no one gets the formula Waugh uses in quite such perfect balance pf procedural, suspense, and mystery.
After Ed McBain he is probably the best of the American police procedural writers.
July 6th, 2022 at 9:47 pm
McBain was the most famous, no doubt about it, and the longest lasting, and as you say, probably the best. . The 87th Precinct stories also came along before Fred Fellows did, but the latter’s books have a small town charm of their own. I wish I’d read more of them (only one!) over the years.
July 6th, 2022 at 9:48 pm
Chief Fred Fellows —
Hillary Waugh:
Sleep Long, My Love (n.) Doubleday 1959 [Connecticut]
Road Block (n.) Doubleday 1960 [Connecticut]
That Night It Rained (n.) Doubleday 1961 [Connecticut]
Born Victim (n.) Doubleday 1962 [Connecticut]
The Late Mrs. D. (n.) Doubleday 1962 [Connecticut]
Death and Circumstance (n.) Doubleday 1963 [Connecticut]
Prisoner’s Plea (n.) Doubleday 1963 [Connecticut]
The Missing Man (n.) Doubleday 1964 [Connecticut]
End of a Party (n.) Doubleday 1965 [Connecticut]
Pure Poison (n.) Doubleday 1966 [Connecticut]
The Con Game (n.) Doubleday 1968 [Connecticut]
December 6th, 2022 at 10:05 pm
Thanks to British mystery bookseller Jamie Sturgeon, I’ve just been able to add an image of the book’s jacket. It isn’t Bob Adey’s copy, but it’s nice to see what the book looks like.