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Arthur Crook #11
The Case of the Tea-Cosy's Aunt
‘Meeting of lawyer-sleuth Arthur Crook and slightly addled Mr. “Tea Cosy” begins series of sinister occurrences in London during Blitz.’
The narrative commences, in the summer of 1940, by explaining why many of the flats in Arthur Crook’s building are empty: ‘when Hitler’s Blitzkrieg on London was staggering everyone except the English, one of his pilots dropped a bomb uncomfortably near the roomy flat occupied by Mr. Arthur Crook.’ Most of the residents fled for the countryside, yet the story homes in one person who did not: Miss Bertha Simmons Fitzpatrick. Along with ‘The Tea Cosy,’ Fitzpatrick is one of the more memorable characters of the book. This is not surprising given the introduction she gets. We are initially told that:
‘for the good of the country (she) joined Churchill’s Silent Column and was very fierce at pinning down enemy spies, discovering them in the most improbable disguises. She believed the Prime Minister when he said they were all around her.’
She watches the comings and goings of the building and is suspicious of Crook. She plays the harmonium whilst doing surveillance from her window, singing ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee/ Nearer to Thee/ E’en though it be a bomb/ That raiseth me.’ The basis of this song is an actual hymn, but Gilbert cheekily changes a word in the third line. Fitzpatrick is a well described character, perhaps the most extensively described character in the book, ranging from being a ‘shawled troglodyte’ and ‘her sparse grey hair sticking out in all directions like a detachment of steel pins’ to her having a ‘voice like a nutmeg-grater’ and ’looking now like a very untidy penguin.’ She sounds like quite a tricky character to cast for if you were going to adapt for film!
Arthur Crook meets T. Kersey, nicknamed "the Tea Cosy", for the first time one night when the absent minded old man tried to get into Crook's flat by mistake. ‘The frightened, tired old man stood in the blacked-out hallway, fumbling with the lock of Mr. Crook’s door. He didn’t look like a housebreaker to Mr. Crook, who was an expert in such matters. Nor did he look like the agent who was to plunge Arthur Crook, that most cynical and hard-boiled of private investigators, into the deadliest and most dangerous of his career. ‘He stood very still for a moment. He said he had a sixth sense that warned him of danger. The fact that more murderous attempts had been made on his life did not affect his belief in his instinct. He said that in his profession a man had to harden himself to take risks. That was what his clients paid him for, “and,” he would add, “they pay damn well.” ’
‘The Tea Cosy's real name Theodore Kersey is something of an oddity, spending his days at the British Library researching a theory he has on time travel. His arrival into the narrative produces some gentle humour as Crook has to process Kersey’s unusual behaviour. The Tea Cosy lived by himself on the floor below and Crook went down with him to investigate the mysterious sound of running water. It was there that Crook's eye lit on that incredible Victorian monstrosity of a hat which belonged to the Tea-Cosy's aunt. But of Aunt Clara herself, there was no sign, though an unopened letter disclosed the fact that she had proposed to call on her worthy nephew that day.
Now that was just the kind of baffling circumstance that whetted the appetite of Arthur Crook, who with every story in which he appears, makes it more evident that in him, Anthony Gilbert has created a major character in Detective Fiction.
As well as interesting social details related to the war, we are also treated to other little snapshots of 1940s England, in the novel, and at one point Crook and Kersey find common ground when they bemoan the unreliability of cleaning ladies. Kersey’s had not turned up that day, so they wonder who might be in Kersey’s flat. Crook poses this question: “You don’t think the charwoman recovered and decided to pop round after lunch?” ‘The Tea-Cosy’s eyes nearly fell out of his head at this bizarre suggestion. “I am the last man in the world to deny the possibility of miracles […] but even so…”’ This story also features another occasion in which a Gilbert mystery has an employment agency for women as part of the plot. The story is a grand one, peopled with rich and varied types and with a wonderfully strong atmosphere of mystery and well-sustained excitement.
The narrative commences, in the summer of 1940, by explaining why many of the flats in Arthur Crook’s building are empty: ‘when Hitler’s Blitzkrieg on London was staggering everyone except the English, one of his pilots dropped a bomb uncomfortably near the roomy flat occupied by Mr. Arthur Crook.’ Most of the residents fled for the countryside, yet the story homes in one person who did not: Miss Bertha Simmons Fitzpatrick. Along with ‘The Tea Cosy,’ Fitzpatrick is one of the more memorable characters of the book. This is not surprising given the introduction she gets. We are initially told that:
‘for the good of the country (she) joined Churchill’s Silent Column and was very fierce at pinning down enemy spies, discovering them in the most improbable disguises. She believed the Prime Minister when he said they were all around her.’
She watches the comings and goings of the building and is suspicious of Crook. She plays the harmonium whilst doing surveillance from her window, singing ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee/ Nearer to Thee/ E’en though it be a bomb/ That raiseth me.’ The basis of this song is an actual hymn, but Gilbert cheekily changes a word in the third line. Fitzpatrick is a well described character, perhaps the most extensively described character in the book, ranging from being a ‘shawled troglodyte’ and ‘her sparse grey hair sticking out in all directions like a detachment of steel pins’ to her having a ‘voice like a nutmeg-grater’ and ’looking now like a very untidy penguin.’ She sounds like quite a tricky character to cast for if you were going to adapt for film!
Arthur Crook meets T. Kersey, nicknamed "the Tea Cosy", for the first time one night when the absent minded old man tried to get into Crook's flat by mistake. ‘The frightened, tired old man stood in the blacked-out hallway, fumbling with the lock of Mr. Crook’s door. He didn’t look like a housebreaker to Mr. Crook, who was an expert in such matters. Nor did he look like the agent who was to plunge Arthur Crook, that most cynical and hard-boiled of private investigators, into the deadliest and most dangerous of his career. ‘He stood very still for a moment. He said he had a sixth sense that warned him of danger. The fact that more murderous attempts had been made on his life did not affect his belief in his instinct. He said that in his profession a man had to harden himself to take risks. That was what his clients paid him for, “and,” he would add, “they pay damn well.” ’
‘The Tea Cosy's real name Theodore Kersey is something of an oddity, spending his days at the British Library researching a theory he has on time travel. His arrival into the narrative produces some gentle humour as Crook has to process Kersey’s unusual behaviour. The Tea Cosy lived by himself on the floor below and Crook went down with him to investigate the mysterious sound of running water. It was there that Crook's eye lit on that incredible Victorian monstrosity of a hat which belonged to the Tea-Cosy's aunt. But of Aunt Clara herself, there was no sign, though an unopened letter disclosed the fact that she had proposed to call on her worthy nephew that day.
Now that was just the kind of baffling circumstance that whetted the appetite of Arthur Crook, who with every story in which he appears, makes it more evident that in him, Anthony Gilbert has created a major character in Detective Fiction.
As well as interesting social details related to the war, we are also treated to other little snapshots of 1940s England, in the novel, and at one point Crook and Kersey find common ground when they bemoan the unreliability of cleaning ladies. Kersey’s had not turned up that day, so they wonder who might be in Kersey’s flat. Crook poses this question: “You don’t think the charwoman recovered and decided to pop round after lunch?” ‘The Tea-Cosy’s eyes nearly fell out of his head at this bizarre suggestion. “I am the last man in the world to deny the possibility of miracles […] but even so…”’ This story also features another occasion in which a Gilbert mystery has an employment agency for women as part of the plot. The story is a grand one, peopled with rich and varied types and with a wonderfully strong atmosphere of mystery and well-sustained excitement.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
2 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Gilbert
132 books38 followersAnthony Gilbert was the pen name of
Lucy Malleson
an English crime writer. She also wrote non-genre fiction as
Anne Meredith
, under which name she also published one crime novel. She also wrote an autobiography under the Meredith name, Three-a-Penny (1940).
Her parents wanted her to be a schoolteacher but she was determined to become a writer. Her first mystery novel followed a visit to the theatre when she saw The Cat and the Canary then, Tragedy at Freyne, featuring Scott Egerton who later appeared in 10 novels, was published in 1927.
She adopted the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert to publish detective novels which achieved great success and made her a name in British detective literature, although many of her readers had always believed that they were reading a male author. She went on to publish 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas.
Crook is a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives who dominated the mystery field when Gilbert introduced him, such as Lord Peter Wimsey.
Instead of dispassionately analyzing a case, he usually enters it after seemingly damning evidence has built up against his client, then conducts a no-holds-barred investigation of doubtful ethicality to clear him or her.
The first Crook novel, Murder by Experts, was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel, A Nice Little Killing, was published in 1974.
Her thriller The Woman in Red (1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title My Name is Julia Ross. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.
Her parents wanted her to be a schoolteacher but she was determined to become a writer. Her first mystery novel followed a visit to the theatre when she saw The Cat and the Canary then, Tragedy at Freyne, featuring Scott Egerton who later appeared in 10 novels, was published in 1927.
She adopted the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert to publish detective novels which achieved great success and made her a name in British detective literature, although many of her readers had always believed that they were reading a male author. She went on to publish 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas.
Crook is a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives who dominated the mystery field when Gilbert introduced him, such as Lord Peter Wimsey.
Instead of dispassionately analyzing a case, he usually enters it after seemingly damning evidence has built up against his client, then conducts a no-holds-barred investigation of doubtful ethicality to clear him or her.
The first Crook novel, Murder by Experts, was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel, A Nice Little Killing, was published in 1974.
Her thriller The Woman in Red (1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title My Name is Julia Ross. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 24, 2023
The Case of the Tea Cosy’s Aunt is the wonderful original title of this 1942 entry in Gilbert’s Arthur Crook series. I refrain from explaining its significance but for those who prefer their mysteries to be well-rooted in their time, the US title, if a tad prosaic in comparison, certainly will give the book its context.
The crimes here, of murder and attempted murder,could only have taken place successfully in the blackout of WW2, which is marvellously well-evoked.
The characterisation is brilliant and much of the writing witty and still funny after more than eighty years. The clueing is clever and the plot interesting, but the perpetrators, given the limited choice, are too soon discernible.This is only a problem if you like your GAD conventionally put together. This is more akin to Mitchell or Allingham in some ways,than to Christie.
I enjoyed it. It is immensely readable and entertaining.
The crimes here, of murder and attempted murder,could only have taken place successfully in the blackout of WW2, which is marvellously well-evoked.
The characterisation is brilliant and much of the writing witty and still funny after more than eighty years. The clueing is clever and the plot interesting, but the perpetrators, given the limited choice, are too soon discernible.This is only a problem if you like your GAD conventionally put together. This is more akin to Mitchell or Allingham in some ways,than to Christie.
I enjoyed it. It is immensely readable and entertaining.
October 5, 2019
I am not fascinated. Interesting detective but rather plodding detection. Maybe just not my idea of fun.
March 3, 2019
Novela menor , por momentos aburrida, por momentos confusa en su desarrollo, con escaso suspenso, tiene como puntos positivos la ambientación, el tono ligero con que está planteada la narración, y la divertida caracterización de los personajes - presentados en forma casi caricaturesca.
Escrita en 1946 y ambientada en una Londres bombardeada por la aviación alemana, entre casas destruidas o abandonadas y las penumbras del oscurecimiento, nos trae como personaje principal a Arthur Crook, el sagaz abogado e investigador protagonista de varias de las novelas de la autora.
Crook decide ayudar al "cubreteteras", su excéntrico vecino, a encontrar a su tía, que desapareció de su departamento dejando su extravagante sombrero olvidado. Cuando, poco después aparece ésta muerta en un departamento abandonado del mismo edificio, y a su vez, desaparece "cubreteteras", comienza una investigación sobre el pasado de la víctima y entre sus allegados; no faltan la típica damisela en apuros, y la aparición de pintorescos personajes y nuevos actos criminales, hasta la resolución y explicación final.
Enlace: HTTPS://SOBREVOLANDOLECTURAS..
Escrita en 1946 y ambientada en una Londres bombardeada por la aviación alemana, entre casas destruidas o abandonadas y las penumbras del oscurecimiento, nos trae como personaje principal a Arthur Crook, el sagaz abogado e investigador protagonista de varias de las novelas de la autora.
Crook decide ayudar al "cubreteteras", su excéntrico vecino, a encontrar a su tía, que desapareció de su departamento dejando su extravagante sombrero olvidado. Cuando, poco después aparece ésta muerta en un departamento abandonado del mismo edificio, y a su vez, desaparece "cubreteteras", comienza una investigación sobre el pasado de la víctima y entre sus allegados; no faltan la típica damisela en apuros, y la aparición de pintorescos personajes y nuevos actos criminales, hasta la resolución y explicación final.
Enlace: HTTPS://SOBREVOLANDOLECTURAS..
March 1, 2022
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
September 28, 2018
2,5 estrellas.
La novela empieza bien, con un tono casi surrealista y algunos personajes excéntricos, pero poco a poco se hace más convencional, empiezan a pasar cosas poco verosímiles y se alarga en exceso.
Entretenida.
La novela empieza bien, con un tono casi surrealista y algunos personajes excéntricos, pero poco a poco se hace más convencional, empiezan a pasar cosas poco verosímiles y se alarga en exceso.
Entretenida.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews