Calamity in Kent

Inspector Shelley #20

by John Rowland

In the peaceful seaside town of Broadgate, an impossible crime occurs. The operator of the cliff railway locks the empty carriage one evening; when he returns to work next morning a dead body is locked inside - a man who has been stabbed in the back. Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is first on the scene. he is quick on the trail for clues - and agrees to pool his knowledge with Inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, who is holidaying in the area. Mistrustful of the plodding local policeman, Inspector beech, the two men launch their own investigation into the most baffling locked-room mystery - a case that could reignite Jimmy's flagging career, but one that exposes him to great danger.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature, Classics, Cozy Mystery, Mystery Thriller

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

John Herbert Shelley Rowland was a B.S.c with Honours in Chemistry.

Reviews

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a seriously hard time suspending disbelief for a mystery novel whose plot boils down to "Scotland Yard Inspector decides his tabloid journalist friend, Jimmy, is the best choice to investigate a locked-room murder, and tells Jimmy to go for it."

[Anissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this one. Considering that I harboured a strong dislike for narrator Jimmy London for more than a third of the way through, I'm fairly amazed at where I wound up in the end. It's a funny thing to dislike a narrator but be very interested in the murder mystery at hand. It's a pretty interesting setup with a body found by a cliff railway lift operator while the lift has been locked from the outside and there are two sets of accounted-for keys.

Jimmy London was offputting and too often mentioned his chance to get back into the headlines and how amazing a reporter he is. His approach and "handling" of many struck me as a bit unsavoury as he quite blatantly was only thinking of his story and vainglory. I almost tossed the book when he pilfered a notebook off a deceased & didn't tell the police the information he'd gleaned from it or hand it over (thus hindering their investigation). When the police finally enter the frame, I thought some of this would get better. In a different way, it got worse. 

Inspector Shelley (of Scotland Yard) knows London from a prior case and happens to be staying in town so is of course in charge of the case. The local Sargeant Beech is mentioned but so much missing from the story I, for a time, thought him a suspect.  

Shelley tells London to check out the Charrington Hotel (as the dead man, Tilsley, was staying there) but the police hadn't yet gone. Shelley's rationale was that some who'd not talk to police would talk to journo was somewhat reasonable but giving London first crack was ridiculous! London chat's with the proprietress who also happened to have been engaged to Tilsley and she's very obliging (in fact said that she'd help anyone bring the murderers to justice) and London needs no finesse in asking to see Tilsley's room. So much for difficult witnesses.  So of course, London sloppily goes through all Tilsley's effects before the police.  London mentions upon finding warning letters in TIlsley's effects that he hasn't enough experience in such matters to know how heavily weighted they may be as clues into his death.... WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY LONDON SHOULDN"T HAVE FIRST CRACK AT THE CLUES!!!!! It's just incredible that this was framed as just fine & normal! And just to drive home the insanity, London travels to Tilseys primary residence, finagles his way in, finds pertinent information and still doesn't immediately share it with Shelley. 

The case gets deeper and more clues are presented along with a couple of innocents who may make for useful patsies. Lucky for them, London takes a liking to them and decides to do all he can to exonerate their involvement in the larger scheme & murders (yes, another body turns up). This was pretty much where I stopped disliking London. I appreciated that he displayed some care about the people this murder case was affecting to some extent. He also experienced a perilous moment before the very end (though as he's narrator, the reader knows he survived it to tell the tale). So in the end, the murder(s) is solved, the wider racket sussed and broken and London has helped a young couple out. 

I learnt that while I love an amateur sleuth, I'm not of fan of them getting the nod from the police in carrying out an actual investigation. This wasn't ultimately a locked room mystery (as is mentioned in the Introduction by Martin Edwards) but I didn't find it a hindrance to enjoyment. It was my first read of Rowland and I do have the other book of his that's featured in the British Library Crime Classics reissue, so I'll definitely read another by him.

Recommended.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

British Library Crime Classics are a mixed bag, but I think this was one of the dullest I have read so far. Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is convalescing at the seaside town of Broadgate, when he sees a man staggering around. Scenting a story, he offers his help, only to discover the man is the lift operator to the cliffside railway and there is a body in the lift he locked up the previous evening.

London is an unbearable character. He excuses all his behaviour by his desire to get back in work and find a special commission on a London newspaper. This includes stealing evidence, searching bodies and springing news of the death of the man in the lift on various friends and acquaintances he comes across. What is more, he talks constantly about his work as a 'newshound,' and, in this more innocent age, the people he comes across seem to accept his stories at face value and offer him access to crime scenes and to search various locations with no suspicion of his true motives.

London is known to Inspector Shelley, who is from Scotland Yard, but is also at Broadgate at the time of the murder. Shelley was John Rowland's main character, in a series which ran from 1935 to 1950 (this is the second to last book in the series, published in 1950), but you don't see much of him in this mystery. Perhaps as bored as the readers, he willingly includes London in his investigation and retires from the scene. Had I not been reading this as a group read, I might have joined him. Despite the interesting idea of a murder in a locked lift, nefarious drug crimes at the seaside and another murder, I found it hard to raise much interest in what was going on and only read on as I hoped London would come to a sticky end himself...

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reporter Jimmy London is convalescing at a small seaside town in Kent and when he meets a lift attendant who has found the body of a man who has quite clearly been murdered in his lift. Jimmy takes charge of the situation, and he hopes that he will be able to climb the career ladder, selling an exclusive inside story to one of the daily papers.

It seems that luck is with Jimmy: his good friend Inspector Shelley from Scotland Yard is on the spot and takes charge of the investigation. He agrees that Jimmy can have any news about the case first, in exchange for a little help with the case. Because Inspector Shelley realises that people will talk to a reporter in a way that won’t talk to the police, and that the reporter will bring a different perspective to the case.

He played Jimmy and Jimmy played him too. He didn’t mention that he had searched the body before that police arrived, that he had found a notebook, and that he was planning more investigations of his own. He would tell the police what he found out, but he wanted it to be his own enquiry and his own story.

It was a good story, and Jimmy was a charming and engaging narrator. I enjoyed the period setting, the seaside location, and some very interesting characters that Jimmy met in the course of his investigations.

I’m sorry that my credulity was stretched a little too far. Too many people were rather too ready to talk to Jimmy, about themselves, about what had happened, and about what they knew. And I couldn’t quite believe how much latitude Inspector Shelley gave Jimmy; or how grateful he was when Jimmy put forward suggestions that an Inspector from Scotland Yard would surely have thought of himself.

The final denouement was dramatic; but it was also ridiculously improbable.

I was well entertained and I was interested enough to read to the end, but reading more books in this series isn’t high on my list of priorities.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely never do this! I always start a series from the beginning; no exceptions! Well, apart from this one. This is book twenty in a twenty one book series, but only this one (and book six) are still in print, for some reason. Normally in these circumstances I’d dismiss the series entirely until such a time where I could read it all but my wife picked this book up while we were on holiday because it is set in (a somewhat fictionalised version of) a town we know very well, as we tend to go there for mini-holidays a few times a year. She loved it and kept pestering me to read it until I finally caved.

I have to say, I’m glad I did, as I enjoyed this locked room murder mystery a great deal. The author seems to have made ‘seaside noir’ a thing and it works very well. I very much enjoyed recognising barely disguised locations I was very familiar with and my eye only developed a very minor nervous twitch when the characters referred back to events in the out-of-print previous books in the series...

[Michaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, but weak end.

[Damaskcat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jimmy London narrates this interesting mystery. He is convalescing at a small seaside town in Kent and planning how to get back into newspaper reporting when he meets a man who has found a dead body. Jimmy immediately sees a way of kick starting his career by acting as special correspondent and giving one of the daily papers an exclusive inside story. He is fortunate that a friend of his, Inspector Shelley from Scotland Yard is on the spot and takes charge of the investigation.

Jimmy's actions are not always quite orthodox - searching the body before the police arrive for example but he does want to solve the case and ultimately doesn't hide evidence from the police. Shelley is clever enough to see that he can use Jimmy to good effect to go where the police are likely to be less welcome.

This is a well written story with plenty of humour and I enjoyed following the investigation along with Jimmy who is really quite an endearing character. I liked the seaside background and the various people Jimmy meets in the course of his investigations.

If you like Golden Age detective fiction then you will probably enjoy this one - though it was first published in the nineteen fifties it still has the feel of the period before World War II. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review.

[Susan in NC · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring, really failed to keep my interest- I kept having to make myself listen to the audiobook, got halfway through, and decided to just jump to the last chapter.

Two main issues for me - suspending disbelief that Scotland Yard Inspector Shelley would so casually go behind the local constabulary to have Jimmy London, reporter, collaborate on the case, and Jimmy’s very casual relationship with journalistic ethics! I don’t know how things are in England, I know there are paparazzi, but I studied journalism in college, and could hear my professors spinning in their graves! I just couldn’t let go and involve myself in the mystery- it seemed pretty obvious, and when I jumped ahead to the last chapter, and Shelley explained it to Jimmy, it was pretty straightforward. No spoilers, but it went along with one of the primary “rules”a mystery buff would recognize when there’s been a murder.

So, basic premise is Jimmy London, reporter, is recuperating from an unnamed illness at seaside town. On a morning walk, he comes to the lift down to the beach - the attendant has just unlocked it to find a murdered man inside. He is upset, Jimmy sees at once a chance for a “scoop” to get back on the front page of some rag - very tacky, but that’s his living to be made! So, he sends the lift attendant off to the police, and promptly starts searching the pockets of the victim, crime scene be damned! Along comes inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, conveniently visiting, and he promptly asks Jimmy to collaborate on the investigation- definitely a twist, the Yard detective is usually worried about pushing in on somebody’s local patch...

Perhaps it was the audiobook narrator, but every time Shelley addressed the reporter, “Well, Jimmy,” it sounded like some creepy Boy’s Guide to the Black Market or something. I’ve never read this author, maybe he always sounds like that, he’s apparently his series detective. I might try another book by the author sometime, but I’m not in a hurry, too many other books...

[Kelly Furniss · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simplistic golden age locked room mystery trying to solve the case of murders that take part in a cliffside lift. The characterisation was interesting, I could visualise them and the Kent coast setting.
I felt the ending came rather abruptly after the story exhibiting a dark edge which could have been expanded on further. Engaging but quite predictable.

[Abigail Bok · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Reading the Detectives group here on Goodreads takes me deep into the byways of Golden Age British mysteries, and through its members’ monthly picks I have discovered some gems of detection. This wasn’t one of them. The writing was pleasant enough on the whole, the principal character mildly entertaining, but the solution to the mystery was both obvious and implausible.

Jimmy London is a reporter taking a rest cure at a Kentish coastal resort in 1950, recovering from an unknown surgery that seems little more than a pretext for getting him to the resort, since he suffers no physical debilities that interfere with his activities. While there he happens across, in short succession, a murder and a Scotland Yard detective who owes him a favor and who just happens to be on the scene as well. A murdered man is discovered inside the locked chamber of a funicular that carries people from the village on the cliffs down to the shore. Jimmy does some inappropriate detecting before the police come upon the scene, which is rewarded rather than punished by his detective friend, and they start to collaborate on unraveling the crime, largely excluding the local constabulary.

It gets even less plausible from there. Jimmy is encouraged to wander at will through the investigation, interviewing witnesses and getting his fingerprints all over the clues. In any mystery worth its salt, these actions would quickly make him a suspect if not lead to his being remanded into custody. But he remains unsuspected and is encouraged to continue. He is a pleasant-enough person to follow about meeting suspects, but the plot just gets more and more ridiculous. Black-market dealings, likely enough in the postwar scarcity years in Britain, morph into darker crimes that could never happen the way they are described. The ending is so abrupt that although we learn who the murderer is (I already knew), we don’t learn the identity of his boss who set the whole crime spree into motion.

As an author, John Rowland shares with another mystery writer of the period, John Bude, the annoying habit of overexplaining. I wanted to shake him sometimes. One example: Jimmy reflects, “And it was only when I was walking down the street from the police station that I remembered that Shelley [the Scotland Yard inspector] had not asked me where I had found the original notebook. My little bit of deception had gone unnoticed! I smiled happily. I was still well thought of by Shelley.” Of those four sentences, the last three are entirely supererogatory. I am accustomed to authors of this era like Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham who keep me on my toes trying to follow the action; this book treated me like such a dunce that I was insulted.

I love the covers of the British Library Crime Classics series, but their charms aren’t sufficient to keep this book in my collection.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

As novels go, this one had a reasonably engaging plot, but within pages, I was consumed by a strong urge to edit the author's overdone commentary. Protagonist Jimmy London indulges in far too many remarks on his feelings and thoughts -- including a number of suggestive adverbs or adjectives that create baseless suspense. Though I almost never abandon novels partway through, at several times I was tempted to do so. London's frequent claims about his journalistic greatness (a contention I doubted more and more as the novel went on) gave me particular annoyance.

It's revealing to contrast this with the distinctive first-person voice Rex Stout creates in his Nero Wolfe stories. There, the authors gets a vivid first-person observer just right.

Voice aside, Rowland has plenty of decent instincts here, but a good editor could (and should!) have pruned the commentary way back and encouraged him to convey more through observations rather than conclusions about the scene. Even if Rowland consciously chose an annoying, gadfly tabloid journalist as his narrator, a better edit could have conveyed that more effectively. I shouldn't wonder if a disciplined trim would have helped Rowland reach more readers.

[KayKay · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Calamity in Kent" is such a fun book to read. Based on the less-than-favorable reviews I was afraid my money wasn't well spent but it turned out this fun little book is quite a pleasant read. Not exceptionally intriguing but enjoyable throughout.

The title is part of the Inspector Shelley series created by John Rowland but the role of Shelley in "Calamity in Kent" is more a master mind behind the scene rather than the man in action. A friend of Shelley, Jimmy London, is a newspaperman and Shelley invites London to be part of the team and to ferret out information that might be useful to solve the two "locked-room" murders. Solving the locked-room mysteries, however, is not the focus of Shelley's plan but to dissolve a drug gang instead. The murderer, of course, is related to the gang. This is pretty much everything what "Calamity in Kent" is about in a nutshell.

I think the writing is so fine and engaging. Not a single dull moment as far as I remember. The expectation of enjoyment would still fall short to some people because "Calamity in Kent" is not the "typical" mystery we modern people are accustomed to. The plot, pace and the adventures are just slower and "silly" in some sense. This might not be the best representation of the classic crime genre but it certainly is not a bad choice at all. A solid 4-star rating in my opinion.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one would expect from a Golden Age mystery (particularly the forgotten ones), there were a lot of implausible elements to this story. But one doesn't read a GA mystery for its realism; you read it for the atmosphere and the escapism. This is best achieved in the country manor setting, but a seaside resort also works well, particularly if you are reading it in the summertime. Jimmy London, a journalist convalescing in Kent, is recovering from some unidentified illness. But once a sensational murder occurs right under his nose, he is ready to get the scoop. Working in close coordination with the police, he slowly unravels the motive and the murderer. This is no Agatha Christie mystery, but was enjoyable enough to hold my attention, and had a good group of characters that could easily appear in further adventures.

[Emma Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasing narrative, abrupt end though.

[Anatl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very simple and solid mystery novel that is written in the style of the golden age of mysteries. The detective is actually a convalescing reporter who stumbles on a closed room mystery, a murder that took place in a locked elevator. The hero is familiar with one of the policemen who recruits him, in a very unlikely gesture, to help with the investigation. From here it is a very straightforward tale of interviewing suspects and following leads. The story takes place in a resort town right off the Kentish coast. Before air travel became cheaper, this type of town was a busy place filled with local tourists. And I think this book would have been lovelier while read in Broadstairs where it takes place. Adding a nostalgic, old-world, charm to this seaside story.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read, though essentially quite a daft plot. Why would a Scotland yard inspector take a convalescing reporter into his confidence? And the ending was pretty abrupt and awful too.

Yet, how I wish I could be in a guest house on the Kent coast right now. And Jimmy was quite a fun character. For that 3.5 stars rounded up

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jimmy London, plucky journalist, is convalescing at the pleasant, calm seaside town of Broadgate when his morning promenade is interrupted by the operator of the cliff railway stumbling into his path and sputtering that a dead body is inside a locked carriage. The relaxing recovery is soon forgotten as Jimmy sees the discovery as the scoop of a life time.

There's a great partnership between Jimmy and Inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, who in true Golden Age crime tradition, do not have confidence in the local constabulary. I always find a locked room mystery enjoyable and this was no exception. I found myself completely swept away with Jimmy's narrative and I was kept guessing right until the end. A highly enjoyable mystery.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

When is a closed room mystery not a closed room mystery. Mr London a journalist recovering after an unspecified operation, becomes involved by chance in a murder of what at first appears to be a petty criminal. He aids an Inspector from Scotland Yard that happens to also be in the same location to investigate, while making himself a tidy sum by setting himself up as a special correspondent for a London newspaper to try to revive his career.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book even though it seemed pretty implausible. The locked room element didn't really payoff, as it was a public place, and we were told about the keys and the ease in which they could be obtained. Also the fact that an inspector from Scotland Yard would take into his confidence a newspaper man seemed ridiculous, however for the reader this was a good way of unfolding the story, as it is through Jack London's eyes we were kept up to date with all the facts. The ending was a bit abrupt, and to me was not a surprise.

[josephine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not expect to like this book as much as I did when I picked it up. I've read "Murder at the Museum" and wasn't particularly amazed, so I started this one without high hopes, expecting a rather mediocre and mild crime. I was definitely unprepared for just how satisfying "Calamity in Kent" was.
The storyline contains plenty of twists and turns, and I actually did not see any of those events coming beforehand. It was great to read!
I really liked the narration of this book, I haven't come across a book narrated like this in a while. However, there was a lot of repetition going on. This and the fact that the narrators predictions were a bit too accurate a bit too often made it a tiny bit annoying. HOWEVER! When I read this, I was brought to imagine the book as one written by Jimmy himself about his adventure post-trial (I see this as the way the book was written particularly because he refers to the reader at certain points, mentioning for instance how the thoughts going through his head did so much faster than the reader would have spend reading the words on the page),. In my opinion many of his remarks and details would make quite a lot of sense in such a context. The way he refers to himself and his intellect for instance.
There are not too many characters, and not too few, and the descriptions of places and people are not too detailed (and thus boring) but still very well done and easily imaginable.
This book, surprisingly enough, has become one of my favourites. A calm, pleasant, relaxed mystery that is easy to get through, doesn't give much away before things happen and keeps you hooked. A bit of an abrupt ending perhaps, but it can also be given a logical explanation. All in all, I loved it!

[TheRavenking · Rating 3 out of 5]

Convalescing after an operation in the small town Broadgate reporter Jimmy London stumbles on a dead body inside a locked carriage. Who is the man and how was the crime committed? While waiting for the police London searches the victim’s pockets and comes upon some important information which enables him to help his friend, Inspector Shelley from Scotland Yard. The two decide to investigate the case together. Soon they find out that the victim might have had ties to organised crime. There are plenty of suspects to question, but it’s not before long, that another dead body appears, putting pressure on the sleuths, to get to the bottom of this baffling case.

John Rowland was one of those obscure Golden Age writers the British Library Crime Classics specialises in. Even though this book was published in 1950, with its impossible mystery and amateur sleuth it seems like a throwback to pre-war times.

On the surface this is an easy, undemanding read. However the narrator has a tendency to overexplain things and repeat certain perfectly obvious facts ad nauseam. With good editing the book could have easily been shortened by about 30-40 pages. This could explain why it took me about three weeks to finish this novel.

This is a solid example of a whodunit, but did not necessarily make me want to read more by this author.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

In which I became frustrated at the slow pace and wordiness...

Narrated by someone I thought was too full of himself (seemed young, but is revealed to be 40 years old) and pompous, I didn't find the mystery that interesting. The tedious details the reporter enthralls his readers with grow old and many, many passages and pages could have been trimmed. Where's the editor when you need him or her? I thought the Scotland Yard Inspector was pretty foolish having such a close confidant working on the case.

I thought some of these British Library Crime Classic entries were very entertaining (Death of an Airman and Fire In the Thatch come to mind), but this belongs with other duds they have reprinted (The Incredible Crime and Weekend at Thrackley).

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining mystery set in the seaside, vacation town of Broadgate with an amateur newspaper-man/investigator who, while not completely believable, gets the job done. Burdened with the ever-present and insipid couple that always wiggles their way into an otherwise perfectly good British mystery of a certain vintage; here, at least, the lady in love is a smart woman who gets her due in the narrative. Will definitely continue with the Inspector Shelley series if they run along these same lines.

I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm willing to cut older mysteries a bit of slack on the "random person investigates alongside the police" factor, but this one really is pushing it. It also wasn't that good a "locked room" mystery. And the characters were, on the whole, rather dense. And I didn't like the main character, which really didn't help.

Meh.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant, rather quaint mystery first published in 1950.

[Lisa Brantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed the writing, actual mystery was mediocre (as other folks have commented) tied up too nicely and quickly. I liked the protagonist. Really 3.5 starts, but can't do that.

[Andréa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the weaker offerings in the British Library Crime Classics collection. I'm trying to thin out my bookshelves, so I thought I'd reread this to see if my memory of it not being particularly outstanding was correct. It was.

The novel is narrated by Jimmy London, a journalist who is recuperating from a serious illness in the seaside town of Broadgate. When he meets a lift attendant who has just discovered a body in his lift, London becomes involved in the murder investigation. While I found it believable that a London newspaper would employ him as an on-the-spot investigator to send them reports, I found it less likely that the police would confide in him to the extent they did and even use him to investigate on their behalf. The police also seem incredibly slow and stupid in their investigation, taking a very long time to ask some obvious questions and completely overlooking a potential murder suspect. London is also a fairly unsympathetic character, withholding information from the police, being unpleasantly judgemental about people's appearances (a man is described as 'grotesque' and 'repulsive' for having red hair, glasses and a limp) and with an inflated sense of his own abilities.

Apart from the weak plot, the other major fault is that the book is too wordy. I'm used to Golden Age fiction being slow paced and descriptive, and I'm usually happy with that as long as the verbosity is relevant, but this one is stuffed with unnecessary words! For example, London examines the room of the murder victim, and after describing the furnishings in detail, he continues "This was all the furniture the room contained, and there was a good deal of space. In other words, the place did not look in any way overcrowded. It was a good indication that the hotel was a reasonably well-run place. The effect of spaciousness, I have often thought, is the test of good taste in furnishing. The walls were papered; the paper was, however, not one of those hideous patterned things with crawling roses that one often sees in hotels. It was almost plain, and its general principle was cream."

I remember when I first read this novel, I assumed that the amount of description given to the wallpaper and other furnishings meant that it surely had some relevance to the plot. But no, it's simply London expanding on his personal preferences for interior décor!!! The whole book is filled with examples like this - paragraphs which have no relevance whatsoever to the actual storyline, but which seem to be there simply to take up space! Where is a strict editor when you need one?

Ironically, later in the book, one of the characters is sharing some vital information with London, who complains that "Tim Foster seemed to be taking a terribly long time to get to the point of what he was trying to say - seemed, indeed, almost to be trying deliberately to spin the yarn out as long as he could. I found it all most tiresome." Actually, I felt that all Foster's information was relevant, but it was funny to see the loquacious London complaining about another person being too long-winded!

This is an ok read to pass the time on holiday (I picked up my copy second-hand for just this reason!) but it doesn't have the quality to earn a permanent place on my bookshelf.

[Jay Maxfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second review of a John Rowland book. This story is set at a much faster pace than Murder in a Museum which suites my tastes & enjoyment of reading classical crimes better. The story itself has a nice seaside setting and gives a clear picture of what life was like after WWII. The novel has Jimmy London as an out of work journalist (due to illness) recuperating in Broadstairs - he scents a possible newsworthy story immediately and so the story begins with a cliff railway liftman showing Jimmy a corpse in a locked carriage scene (which is barely touched upon in this story). Inspector Shelley of the yard is assigned the case because he happens to be at the police station at the time when the crime was reported. Both Inspector Shelley & Jimmy are acquainted from an earlier case (maybe through an earlier novel?) - and Shelley decides to use Jimmy to snoop unofficially to get information that wouldn't be easily available to police officers in return for newspaper coverage. The story is narrated from the eyes of Jimmy London and is explicit in regards to some of his unorthodox ways of getting information. Jimmy is allowed an unrealistic amount of leeway by Shelley in his evidence gathering - but classic crime fans will have encountered this on numerous occasions before from various classic crime writers. This is not a puzzle based, alibi busting novel and the solution to whodunit is only ascertained by reading the book until its end - as the murderer is only revealed in the last but one page. There are no clues in the novel to prove which character committed the murder and so it could well be any one of the half dozen or more characters described in the storyline - the author could have picked anyone of these characters - this in my opinion is the only flaw in the book - however I enjoyed reading the book even if the fluidity of the book for the first 40 or so pages did take me some getting use to. As the book was published in 1950 - I would have thought the style and storyline of this kind of book was at the very end of the golden age of classical crime? I would give the book 7.5 out of 10.

[Mr S · Rating 3 out of 5]

A locked room mystery which doesn’t really lean into the problem of the locked room all that much!
The story follows the attempts of convalescing journalist Jimmy London to investigate a series of murders in a seaside town. Rowland’s Inspector Shelley apparently delegates the responsibility for cracking the case to the newshound narrator, who with a little guidance from Scotland Yard is eventually able to blunder his way to the solution.

Jimmy London isn’t your typical amateur sleuth. Other than a journalists eye for a lead and a confidence in his own judge of character, he tends to uncover the majority of his clues by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. Indeed, on several occasions our protagonist inexplicably chooses to delay delivering a key piece of evidence to his Scotland Yard handler - which doesn’t seem to have any adverse effects on the case as a whole due to the diligent work of Scotland Yard.

Shelley on the other hand reminded me a bit of Agatha Christie’s Inspector Battle. Both fall into the category of that Scotland Yard detective who seems to know slightly more than he lets on and is prepared to use a combination of old fashioned police work and somewhat imaginative and unorthodox means at times to get to the truth of the matter.

Overall there was enough intrigue about the story to keep me reading and the pace kept things ticking along but the all around characterisation probably needed a little fuller development if this was to be considered a truly classic whodunnit mystery. Once the motive was clearly established it was hard to see any of the key characters as a really plausible murderer. The solution was satisfactory, but the ending of the story seemed somewhat abrupt in its arrival.