Mr. Fortune Explains

Reggie Fortune

by H.C. Bailey

Mr Fortune Explains

By H. C. Bailey

Narrated by Graham Scott

HC Bailey's sixth collection of eight golden-age mysteries for the eclectic surgeon-detective Mr Reginald Fortune. Including a child kidnapped from a picnic; a milliner's assistant vanishing from home without a word to her friends; a strange visit, followed by a violent attack on Mr Fortune himself; a raid on a jeweler's shop, and the theft of a photograph; an ill-situated rock garden, and a haunted man; a rigidly saintly clergyman suspected of a trivial theft; a dead policeman and a broken bicycle lamp; and a curiously disturbing picture in the Paris salon...

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Henry Christopher Bailey (1878 – 1961) was an English author of detective fiction. Bailey wrote mainly short stories featuring a medically-qualified detective called Reggie Fortune. Fortune's mannerisms and speech put him into the same class as Lord Peter Wimsey but the stories are much darker, and often involve murderous obsession, police corruption, financial skulduggery, child abuse and miscarriages of justice. Although Mr Fortune is seen at his best in short stories, he also appears in several novels.

A second series character, Josiah Clunk, is a sanctimonious lawyer who exposes corruption and blackmail in local politics, and who manages to profit from the crimes. He appears in eleven novels published between 1930 and 1950, including The Sullen Sky Mystery (1935), widely regarded as Bailey's magnum opus.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another eight (longish) short stories featuring the medical advisor to the CID, Reginald Fortune. Everyone thinks Reggie is very good at forming improbable theories, but he tells them that he is, on the contrary, good at looking at the evidence that exists. His weakness is for innocence, especially children, including a child in this volume who talks the most godawful baby-talk you've ever read. Of course, the mores are those of the 1920's and 1930's, when the stories were written, so sometimes one must make allowances.

Borrowed from the Center for Fiction.