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Inspector Bland #2
A Man Called Jones
The office party was in full swing so no one heard the shotfired at close range through the back of Lionel Hargreaves, elder son of the founder of Hargreaves Advertising Agency. The killer left only one cluea pair of yellow glovesbut it looked almost as if he had wanted them to be found. As Inspector Bland sets out to solve the murder, he encounters a deadly trail of deception, suspenseand two more dead bodies.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
15 people want to read
About the author
Julian Symons
257 books67 followersJulian Gustave Symons is primarily remembered as a master of the art of crime writing. However, in his eighty-two years he produced an enormously varied body of work. Social and military history, biography and criticism were all subjects he touched upon with remarkable success, and he held a distinguished reputation in each field.
His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America - an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain's Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writer.
Symons held a number of positions prior to becoming a full-time writer including secretary to an engineering company and advertising copywriter and executive. It was after the end of World War II that he became a free-lance writer and book reviewer and from 1946 to 1956 he wrote a weekly column entitled "Life, People - and Books" for the Manchester Evening News. During the 1950s he was also a regular contributor to Tribune, a left-wing weekly, serving as its literary editor.
He founded and edited 'Twentieth Century Verse', an important little magazine that flourished from 1937 to 1939 and he introduced many young English poets to the public. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry entitled 'Confusions about X', 1939, and 'The Second Man', 1944.
He wrote hie first detective novel, 'The Immaterial Murder Case', long before it was first published in 1945 and this was followed in 1947 by a rare volume entitled 'A Man Called Jones' that features for the first time Inspector Bland, who also appeared in Bland Beginning.
These novles were followed by a whole host of detective novels and he has also written many short stories that were regularly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In additin there are two British paperback collections of his short stories, Murder! Murder! and Francis Quarles Investigates, which were published in 1961 and 1965 resepctively.
His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America - an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain's Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writer.
Symons held a number of positions prior to becoming a full-time writer including secretary to an engineering company and advertising copywriter and executive. It was after the end of World War II that he became a free-lance writer and book reviewer and from 1946 to 1956 he wrote a weekly column entitled "Life, People - and Books" for the Manchester Evening News. During the 1950s he was also a regular contributor to Tribune, a left-wing weekly, serving as its literary editor.
He founded and edited 'Twentieth Century Verse', an important little magazine that flourished from 1937 to 1939 and he introduced many young English poets to the public. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry entitled 'Confusions about X', 1939, and 'The Second Man', 1944.
He wrote hie first detective novel, 'The Immaterial Murder Case', long before it was first published in 1945 and this was followed in 1947 by a rare volume entitled 'A Man Called Jones' that features for the first time Inspector Bland, who also appeared in Bland Beginning.
These novles were followed by a whole host of detective novels and he has also written many short stories that were regularly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In additin there are two British paperback collections of his short stories, Murder! Murder! and Francis Quarles Investigates, which were published in 1961 and 1965 resepctively.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 28, 2021
After a bit of a slow start, I can say that I found this book interesting, if nothing else. I read it to fulfill a category for a good read challenge at one group, finding a copy at a reasonable price which isn't as easy as it seems. From the descriptions of the other books, I'm not in a great hurry to get my hands on copies.
Inspector Bland was such a difficult character to get a handle on that I wasn't certain whether we were really supposed to like him or not? I can't say I dislike them, but I didn't really understand him enough to bond with the character, so to speak. An unusual feature of the police procedural is that he worked with his assistant, Filby, as well as Sinclair, an old school friend who works in the advertising agency involved, to solve the case.
One reviewer mentioned that even though it's set in the immediate postwar period, life among the characters exist as though the war had never happened. I found that to be quite true, especially marveling at the way the upper classes lived well during a time of rationing.
Finally, although we do learn the identity of the murderer, I had no idea what the author meant with his cryptic final line? Talk about frustration!
Inspector Bland was such a difficult character to get a handle on that I wasn't certain whether we were really supposed to like him or not? I can't say I dislike them, but I didn't really understand him enough to bond with the character, so to speak. An unusual feature of the police procedural is that he worked with his assistant, Filby, as well as Sinclair, an old school friend who works in the advertising agency involved, to solve the case.
One reviewer mentioned that even though it's set in the immediate postwar period, life among the characters exist as though the war had never happened. I found that to be quite true, especially marveling at the way the upper classes lived well during a time of rationing.
Finally, although we do learn the identity of the murderer, I had no idea what the author meant with his cryptic final line? Talk about frustration!
July 9, 2021
The first weird thing about this crime novel first published in 1947 and set in London is the complete and utter absence of any reminder that there has just been a terrible war--no one mentions it, no one seems to have served in it, no one died in it, there's not a bombsite to be seen, careers and lives have been wholly uninterrupted, there's no rationing, nothing. It's weird as hell. At the beginning of the final chapter, as the successful detective prepares to explain how he solved the crimes, his sergeant makes a comment that is so unimportant that it's relegated to parentheses: ("'There won't be a war this year, or next year either,' Filby, who was a reader of the The Daily Express, had announced confidently"). And that's it. In this narrative world, the war was a nonevent, apparently.
And that's the other weird thing, that display of the detective's detecting skills. It's standard enough to conclude with such a scene--think of Poirot gathering everyone in the library to reveal the murderer--except that the murderer has already been revealed, sort of. So the detective, Inspector Bland, invites some of the main characters to a sumptuous lunch, finishing with expensive liqueurs (no rationing, remember, and apparently an unlimited expense account from Scotland Yard that stretches to include expensive, luxurious luncheons at elegant restaurants), and narrates his wondrous feats of detection. "What I can't understand, and what we'd like you to explain more than anything, is how you solved the case," insists one of them. And so Bland obliges, at length. Except none of them actually listens to him; in fact, his summing up of the mystery and its solution puts everyone to sleep at the luncheon table. So he wakes up his sergeant and they tiptoe away, leaving everyone fast asleep in the restaurant. The End. It's all very odd.
And that's the other weird thing, that display of the detective's detecting skills. It's standard enough to conclude with such a scene--think of Poirot gathering everyone in the library to reveal the murderer--except that the murderer has already been revealed, sort of. So the detective, Inspector Bland, invites some of the main characters to a sumptuous lunch, finishing with expensive liqueurs (no rationing, remember, and apparently an unlimited expense account from Scotland Yard that stretches to include expensive, luxurious luncheons at elegant restaurants), and narrates his wondrous feats of detection. "What I can't understand, and what we'd like you to explain more than anything, is how you solved the case," insists one of them. And so Bland obliges, at length. Except none of them actually listens to him; in fact, his summing up of the mystery and its solution puts everyone to sleep at the luncheon table. So he wakes up his sergeant and they tiptoe away, leaving everyone fast asleep in the restaurant. The End. It's all very odd.
April 6, 2010
This is an excellent classic mystery. I'm amazed that there are no reviews of this book here at Goodreads or on Amazon. The version I read was an English paperback published in 1963 that I found on the "read and return rack" at the Eugene library. I had never heard of the author but liked the look of the nearly 50 year old paperback with its price in shillings and pence.
Julian Symons creates the classic upper class murder with limited suspects. He lays down plenty of red herrings to keep the reader guessing right to the end.
Julian Symons creates the classic upper class murder with limited suspects. He lays down plenty of red herrings to keep the reader guessing right to the end.
May 31, 2019
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
August 1, 2016
Fun, but I personally thought the murderer rather obvious, though I did entertain suspicions towards towards the end.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews