The Case of the Curious Client: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

Ludovic Travers #32

by Christopher Bush

Near the right temple was a hole, and down the forehead and along the nose was dried blood. “Shot, by God! No wonder the poor old devil couldn’t hear.” When the telephone bell rings in Bill Ellice’s Broad Street Detective Agency, it happens to be Ludovic Travers who takes the call. The new client is certainly out of the ordinary, for he claims that his life is in danger. He wants the firm to trace a nephew who would be a protection. Travers finds the Curious Client puzzling—and that night the client is murdered. All that confronts the police is a series of perfect alibis and yet the enquiry has to go on. It leads to a night-club and a country house and to the queer business of a mink coat and a poultry-farm. And after that to a second murder. Here are both Ludovic Travers and Christopher Bush at their best. To the legion of their admirers there is no need to say more. The Case of the Curious Client was originally published in 1947. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. “There is something fine . . . about Bush’s writing that stands his work apart from the helter-skelter concoctions of the majority of his competitors.” Hoofs and Horns

Genres: Mystery

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Christopher Bush was educated in the local school. He then won a scholarship to Thetford Grammar, and went on to study modern languages at King's College London, after which he worked as a school teacher.

He participated in both world wars.

He was a prolific writer of detective novels, wrote three autobiographical novels and nine books about Breckland life using the nom-de-plume Michael Home.

He lived in Great Hockham.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

The background to this, expertly detailed in the Introduction, is in the pre WW2 British Union of Fascists, one of the murkier byways of UK politics, although the setting is mainly in the London of the early years of Atlee's Labour Government. However, apart from the usual rather grating references to high rates of income tax, politics do not really figure.

It is another tale of an uncle and three nephews with two mysterious murders and the usual alibis to be probed. Certainly it is twistier than the previous instalment in the Travers/Wharton saga,but it still suffers from too much musing and theorising.

3.5 stars.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another strong post-war effort that sees Travers tracking down the killer of a pretty unpleasant character, a fascist who had been interned and was in the process of recovering the cash he'd had stashed for the duration.
It's a typical alibi busting affair and moves along at a nice clip. I was onto the killer from a pretty early stage but that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

[Jean Fausto · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the book in general, but still, after reading Christie or Doyle, Bush's work seems less appealing. I didn't feel attached to the protagonist and liked mainly the whole Guy Fawkes and fascist context rather than the storyline, the crime solving or the characters. Anyway, it was an ok read (oh, and i read somewhere it was a crime fiction classic; i didn't think as much, but it's my opinion;)