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The Man Who Didn't Fly
A new addition to the British Library Crime Classics Series, Gold Dagger award-winning Margot Bennett was a Scottish crime author and screenwriter. The story was short-listed for the first CWA Gold Dagger award in 1955 and takes place in multiple parts of the U.K. (Ireland, Wales, London). It includes the extremely rare short story from Bennett, ‘No Bath for the Browns’.
Four men had arranged to fly to Dublin. When their aeroplane descended as a fireball into the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the passengers lost beneath the waves, a tense and perplexing investigation begins to determine the living from the dead, with scarce evidence to follow beyond a few snippets of overheard conversation and one family’s patchy account of the three days prior to the flight.
Who was the man who didn’t fly? What did he have to gain? And would he commit such an explosive murder to get it? First published in 1955, Bennett’s ingenious mystery remains an innovative and thoroughly entertaining inversion of the classic whodunit. This edition also includes the rare short story ‘No Bath for the Browns’.
Four men had arranged to fly to Dublin. When their aeroplane descended as a fireball into the Irish Sea, only three of them were on board. With the identities of the passengers lost beneath the waves, a tense and perplexing investigation begins to determine the living from the dead, with scarce evidence to follow beyond a few snippets of overheard conversation and one family’s patchy account of the three days prior to the flight.
Who was the man who didn’t fly? What did he have to gain? And would he commit such an explosive murder to get it? First published in 1955, Bennett’s ingenious mystery remains an innovative and thoroughly entertaining inversion of the classic whodunit. This edition also includes the rare short story ‘No Bath for the Browns’.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1955
48 people are currently reading
289 people want to read
About the author
Margot Bennett
37 books17 followersScottish author Margot Bennett was born in 1912 and worked first first as a copywriter in the UK and Australia and then as a nurse during the Spanish Civil War before turning to writing. Her output in crime fiction was relatively small, yet successful: The Man Who Didn't Fly was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and was runner-up to Charlotte Armstrong's A Dram of Poison for Best Novel at the Edgars in 1956, and she won the Gold Dagger two years later in 1958 with Someone from the Past. She was also chosen to contribute a short story to the second CWA anthology, Choice Of Weapons, edited by Michael Gilbert.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
June 27, 2022
My goodness, this was tedious. Four days to read a book with fewer than 300 pages.
To be sure there's a good mystery in this story. A flight to Dublin is chartered to fly four men. It takes off and unfortunately goes down into the ocean in a ball of flames. It's then realized that only three men flew and the question becomes the identity of the man who didn't fly. It's complicated by not being sure which men were on the flight and that is the line of investigation that Inspector Lewis and Sargeant Young tackle by interviewing the Wade family.
Mr. Wade has two daughters, Hester a medical school student home between term and teenager Prudence. All four men had interactions with the family in the days leading up to the plane crash and recollections of that time are instrumental in the solution. And this is what the main of the story and where the central mystery is weighed down and practically crushed. It's circuitous in the details extracted and yes, it feels like Lewis is pulling teeth with the Wades. Often I wondered if they were really interested in finding out the truth which was a bit strange because Hester and Prudence had romantic interest in some of the men. It felt like a stalling tactic with all their soppy melodrama and was very irritating. Hester in particular came across as completely silly and I stopped believing her to be a medical student. Prudence was similarly plagued but being an overly romantic teenager, it tracked. Mr. Wade, I just felt bad for him as his business ambition far exceeded his abilities. Money practically fled from this man and I was glad he got a bit of a reprieve by the end of having a large portion of his remaining nest egg salvaged staving off penury.
I thought the characterization of the four men was uneven, with two portrayed more vividly and the remaining two sort of disappearing in distinction for their flatness. There's one other man who appears, Marryatt, who scowls, blusters and bullies about so much as the Inspector and Sargeant are wrapping things up that I was shocked in the conclusion when he's offered as a romantic win for Hester. Just no. There's a jewellery theft connected here as well and an opera. In the final analysis, the solution was done well enough but it was overall crushed by the weight of tiresome characters and their melodrama.
I will of course continue reading the British Library Classic Crime reissues. The forward by Martin Edwards was of course, wonderful and had me adding Margot Bennett's science fiction novels, The Long Way Back and The Furious Masters to my TBR.
And while this was just an okay read for me, I have to give Bennett her turn of phrase here. I have some favourite lines:
The amusing quotes:
"...He always seemed healthy and almost aggressively clean." She looked at the two detectives, who were brushed, scrubbed, shaved, creased, and shining, as if they had been preparing for inspection by Royalty."
"He looks like the kind of man who's been spoilt by his mother and kicked out by his father.
She was sixteen, not at all shy in her assumption that she had the solution to all human problem; and she added to this common adolescent feature a frightening competence.
He certainly deserved a good dinner, Hester thought, but it was a pity that good dinners involved cutting up so many things into such small pieces.
There's no satisfaction in throwing some fish into a frying pan. If a meal can't be a poem, it isn't worth cooking.
The "Eff that guy!" quotes:
"I remember having a financial crisis in Persia. I left it with forty-two thousand owing. I paid back every penny, except what I owed the Persians. Money! I never think of it."
"Do you know, I did rather like South Africa," Maurice said easily. "I haven't been there for years- I know they have their racial troubles, very regrettable. I couldn't approve less, but perhaps it was the tension that made it seem so exciting. It's like a game of chess, you know- White to play and mate in three moves- but Black has most of the pieces."
The "Just because it's cynical doesn't make it untrue" quote:
"People fall in love and they die, and no amount of poetic advice has ever helped them to do either of those things more successfully. They are interested in love for a few years, and later they are afraid of death. But they are always interested in money. Everyone, everywhere is interested in money all the time. There's never been an age when people agreed so heartily to be interested all at once in the same thing."
To be sure there's a good mystery in this story. A flight to Dublin is chartered to fly four men. It takes off and unfortunately goes down into the ocean in a ball of flames. It's then realized that only three men flew and the question becomes the identity of the man who didn't fly. It's complicated by not being sure which men were on the flight and that is the line of investigation that Inspector Lewis and Sargeant Young tackle by interviewing the Wade family.
Mr. Wade has two daughters, Hester a medical school student home between term and teenager Prudence. All four men had interactions with the family in the days leading up to the plane crash and recollections of that time are instrumental in the solution. And this is what the main of the story and where the central mystery is weighed down and practically crushed. It's circuitous in the details extracted and yes, it feels like Lewis is pulling teeth with the Wades. Often I wondered if they were really interested in finding out the truth which was a bit strange because Hester and Prudence had romantic interest in some of the men. It felt like a stalling tactic with all their soppy melodrama and was very irritating. Hester in particular came across as completely silly and I stopped believing her to be a medical student. Prudence was similarly plagued but being an overly romantic teenager, it tracked. Mr. Wade, I just felt bad for him as his business ambition far exceeded his abilities. Money practically fled from this man and I was glad he got a bit of a reprieve by the end of having a large portion of his remaining nest egg salvaged staving off penury.
I thought the characterization of the four men was uneven, with two portrayed more vividly and the remaining two sort of disappearing in distinction for their flatness. There's one other man who appears, Marryatt, who scowls, blusters and bullies about so much as the Inspector and Sargeant are wrapping things up that I was shocked in the conclusion when he's offered as a romantic win for Hester. Just no. There's a jewellery theft connected here as well and an opera. In the final analysis, the solution was done well enough but it was overall crushed by the weight of tiresome characters and their melodrama.
I will of course continue reading the British Library Classic Crime reissues. The forward by Martin Edwards was of course, wonderful and had me adding Margot Bennett's science fiction novels, The Long Way Back and The Furious Masters to my TBR.
And while this was just an okay read for me, I have to give Bennett her turn of phrase here. I have some favourite lines:
The amusing quotes:
"...He always seemed healthy and almost aggressively clean." She looked at the two detectives, who were brushed, scrubbed, shaved, creased, and shining, as if they had been preparing for inspection by Royalty."
"He looks like the kind of man who's been spoilt by his mother and kicked out by his father.
She was sixteen, not at all shy in her assumption that she had the solution to all human problem; and she added to this common adolescent feature a frightening competence.
He certainly deserved a good dinner, Hester thought, but it was a pity that good dinners involved cutting up so many things into such small pieces.
There's no satisfaction in throwing some fish into a frying pan. If a meal can't be a poem, it isn't worth cooking.
The "Eff that guy!" quotes:
"I remember having a financial crisis in Persia. I left it with forty-two thousand owing. I paid back every penny, except what I owed the Persians. Money! I never think of it."
"Do you know, I did rather like South Africa," Maurice said easily. "I haven't been there for years- I know they have their racial troubles, very regrettable. I couldn't approve less, but perhaps it was the tension that made it seem so exciting. It's like a game of chess, you know- White to play and mate in three moves- but Black has most of the pieces."
The "Just because it's cynical doesn't make it untrue" quote:
"People fall in love and they die, and no amount of poetic advice has ever helped them to do either of those things more successfully. They are interested in love for a few years, and later they are afraid of death. But they are always interested in money. Everyone, everywhere is interested in money all the time. There's never been an age when people agreed so heartily to be interested all at once in the same thing."
February 2, 2021
I honestly have not the slightest clue what I have just read, and that's not for lack of trying. I know that sometimes books written this long ago require more concentration on my part to follow the plot, because the language usage is not quite what I'm used to, and given the accolades on the back of the copy I have, I really wanted to at least understand what was going on.
It's a very different type of story - finding out which man didn't fly being central to the story - and okay, it initially looked like something fairly promising as even the introduction was not what I had expected from the title. I thought "the man who didn't fly" referred to someone who, as a matter of principle, didn't fly, rather than a man who simply was not on board this particular flight (I received this book as a gift, and had not read the blurb before). That was a good start, throwing the unexpected my way almost immediately.
Once the premise was established, I was initially of the impression that . Much of the book is instead devoted to the officers going around speaking to people, most prominently the Wade family (who seem to have something to do with each of the men who could be the one that didn't fly). The conversation rewinds to the two days before the flight and takes the reader through what the men did during those two days, revealing - surprise surprise! - that each of the men had secrets of their own. "Conversation" is also a rather generous term to use to describe what went on, as everyone seemed incredibly chatty for a book character, and there was a lot of what felt like monologuing as what one character said (in response to another) didn't always relate to the point of the original speaker. It didn't help in the slightest that all the characters felt incredibly one-dimensional, and I reached a point where I struggled to distinguish who was who.
By the time we got to the day before the flight (maybe two-thirds way through), this was starting to read more and more like a "what happened in this peaceful little village" type of general fiction book rather than a crime/mystery. I think the example quote on Goodreads is fairly representative of the book as a whole: Super long, goes around and around in circles to the extent that it wasn't clear any more what was important and what was not. I read till the end just to see how it would end, as it was a relatively short book, and wasn't really surprised myself when I ended it with a shrug and an "oh, okay".
I appreciate the efforts of the British Library to put together this collection of stories, and have discovered many delights that I otherwise would probably not have picked up. But they do tend to be quite hit-and-miss, with this one in particular a solid miss. 1.5 stars, 2 on Goodreads on the account of finishing.
It's a very different type of story - finding out which man didn't fly being central to the story - and okay, it initially looked like something fairly promising as even the introduction was not what I had expected from the title. I thought "the man who didn't fly" referred to someone who, as a matter of principle, didn't fly, rather than a man who simply was not on board this particular flight (I received this book as a gift, and had not read the blurb before). That was a good start, throwing the unexpected my way almost immediately.
Once the premise was established, I was initially of the impression that . Much of the book is instead devoted to the officers going around speaking to people, most prominently the Wade family (who seem to have something to do with each of the men who could be the one that didn't fly). The conversation rewinds to the two days before the flight and takes the reader through what the men did during those two days, revealing - surprise surprise! - that each of the men had secrets of their own. "Conversation" is also a rather generous term to use to describe what went on, as everyone seemed incredibly chatty for a book character, and there was a lot of what felt like monologuing as what one character said (in response to another) didn't always relate to the point of the original speaker. It didn't help in the slightest that all the characters felt incredibly one-dimensional, and I reached a point where I struggled to distinguish who was who.
By the time we got to the day before the flight (maybe two-thirds way through), this was starting to read more and more like a "what happened in this peaceful little village" type of general fiction book rather than a crime/mystery. I think the example quote on Goodreads is fairly representative of the book as a whole: Super long, goes around and around in circles to the extent that it wasn't clear any more what was important and what was not. I read till the end just to see how it would end, as it was a relatively short book, and wasn't really surprised myself when I ended it with a shrug and an "oh, okay".
I appreciate the efforts of the British Library to put together this collection of stories, and have discovered many delights that I otherwise would probably not have picked up. But they do tend to be quite hit-and-miss, with this one in particular a solid miss. 1.5 stars, 2 on Goodreads on the account of finishing.
September 14, 2020
A puzzling mystery…
A plane crashes en route to Dublin. Four men were supposed to have been going on the trip, but only three boarded the plane. There were no survivors and no bodies have been found. The first problem is that no one knows which of the four men is the one who is, presumably, still alive. The second problem is that he hasn’t turned up, explaining why he missed the flight. Inspector Lewis and his assistant, Sergeant Young, have to backtrack through the last day or two to see if they can identify the man who didn’t fly, and find out why he has disappeared…
This is a very odd crime novel. I assumed the crime would be that the plane had been deliberately destroyed, meaning that the pilot and passengers had been murdered. But this idea never seems to feature much. Maybe back in the 1950s, planes were always falling out of the sky en route to Dublin so it didn’t seem so suspicious? Instead, Lewis and Young seem to be merely trying to identify the dead and the living, for the sake of the inquests. And yet I couldn’t quite swallow the idea that two relatively high-level officers would be assigned to such a task. Fortunately, however, it soon transpires that all four of the men had secrets, so the lack of an obvious crime soon fades into the background as the investigation begins to centre on what they’d all been up to in the days before the flight.
Some of the early part follows the usual detective story format of Lewis questioning locals, but soon he hones in on the Wade family, who seem to have had connections with all four of the men. From then on it’s told partly through members of the family giving their recollections, mixed with a straight third-person narrative of what they’re telling. Again odd, but it does work eventually, after a rather slow and confusing start. Mostly we see the action from the perspective of Hester, the older of Mr Wade’s two daughters. She’s a sensible young woman, who is worried that her father seems bent on speculating with his small remaining fortune on the advice of one of the plane’s passengers. Another is the Wade’s lodger, a strange, nervous man who seems almost paranoid at times. A third man is a neighbour and long-time friend of the family. And the fourth is Harry, a ne’er-do-well with poetical aspirations, with whom young Hester is beginning to fancy herself in love. So the family is as keen to know who has survived as the police are, and readily co-operate in telling all they know of the days leading up to the crash.
The basis for the plot is all a bit silly really, and not terribly credible. But the actual plotting of the mystery element is excellent – it’s a real puzzle, based on clues and logic and elimination. The reader has as much chance as the police to work out the identities of the men on the basis of the clues given. Needless to say, I didn’t, although some parts of the story were easier to guess at than others. The characterisation is a bit contrived to serve the plot, and I must admit it took me ages before I could tell most of the missing men apart without checking back each time to remind myself which was which. Harry the poet and the Wade family members are much better drawn, especially Hester, who provides a rare character to care about amidst the many unlikeable and unscrupulous people in the cast.
Overall, I have rather mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed the second half much more than the first, and suspect it would greatly appeal to people who enjoy the challenge of a clue-based logic puzzle. It’s not quite as successful in terms of character and motive, but these aspects are still strong enough to give an enjoyable background for the puzzle elements. One for the mind rather than the emotions, I think.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
A plane crashes en route to Dublin. Four men were supposed to have been going on the trip, but only three boarded the plane. There were no survivors and no bodies have been found. The first problem is that no one knows which of the four men is the one who is, presumably, still alive. The second problem is that he hasn’t turned up, explaining why he missed the flight. Inspector Lewis and his assistant, Sergeant Young, have to backtrack through the last day or two to see if they can identify the man who didn’t fly, and find out why he has disappeared…
This is a very odd crime novel. I assumed the crime would be that the plane had been deliberately destroyed, meaning that the pilot and passengers had been murdered. But this idea never seems to feature much. Maybe back in the 1950s, planes were always falling out of the sky en route to Dublin so it didn’t seem so suspicious? Instead, Lewis and Young seem to be merely trying to identify the dead and the living, for the sake of the inquests. And yet I couldn’t quite swallow the idea that two relatively high-level officers would be assigned to such a task. Fortunately, however, it soon transpires that all four of the men had secrets, so the lack of an obvious crime soon fades into the background as the investigation begins to centre on what they’d all been up to in the days before the flight.
Some of the early part follows the usual detective story format of Lewis questioning locals, but soon he hones in on the Wade family, who seem to have had connections with all four of the men. From then on it’s told partly through members of the family giving their recollections, mixed with a straight third-person narrative of what they’re telling. Again odd, but it does work eventually, after a rather slow and confusing start. Mostly we see the action from the perspective of Hester, the older of Mr Wade’s two daughters. She’s a sensible young woman, who is worried that her father seems bent on speculating with his small remaining fortune on the advice of one of the plane’s passengers. Another is the Wade’s lodger, a strange, nervous man who seems almost paranoid at times. A third man is a neighbour and long-time friend of the family. And the fourth is Harry, a ne’er-do-well with poetical aspirations, with whom young Hester is beginning to fancy herself in love. So the family is as keen to know who has survived as the police are, and readily co-operate in telling all they know of the days leading up to the crash.
The basis for the plot is all a bit silly really, and not terribly credible. But the actual plotting of the mystery element is excellent – it’s a real puzzle, based on clues and logic and elimination. The reader has as much chance as the police to work out the identities of the men on the basis of the clues given. Needless to say, I didn’t, although some parts of the story were easier to guess at than others. The characterisation is a bit contrived to serve the plot, and I must admit it took me ages before I could tell most of the missing men apart without checking back each time to remind myself which was which. Harry the poet and the Wade family members are much better drawn, especially Hester, who provides a rare character to care about amidst the many unlikeable and unscrupulous people in the cast.
Overall, I have rather mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed the second half much more than the first, and suspect it would greatly appeal to people who enjoy the challenge of a clue-based logic puzzle. It’s not quite as successful in terms of character and motive, but these aspects are still strong enough to give an enjoyable background for the puzzle elements. One for the mind rather than the emotions, I think.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
February 20, 2021
While reading this novel, I really tried to remember the time frame of when it was written and set. At the beginning I thought oh, what fun...but then it meandered with accounts and conversations that were so boring. The characters were very one dimensional and the females, I can't believe I'm saying this, seemed hysterical. I had to check again that a female wrote this book. I never really understood this description...but maybe it only seemed this way because of the endless dialogue and the characters not written to much depth.
November 19, 2016
Scottish author Margot Bennett was born in 1912 and worked first first as a copywriter in the UK and Australia and then as a nurse during the Spanish Civil War before turning to writing. Her output in crime fiction was relatively small, yet successful: The Man Who Didn't Fly was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and was runner-up to Charlotte Armstrong's A Dram of Poison for Best Novel at the Edgars in 1956, and she won the Gold Dagger two years later in 1958 with Someone from the Past. She was also chosen to contribute a short story to the second CWA anthology, Choice Of Weapons, edited by Michael Gilbert.
But thereafter, a bit of mystery regarding Bennett herself began. She essentially stopped writing crime fiction, something discussed by Martin Edwards both on his blog and in the foreword he wrote for the Black Dagger Crime Series edition of The Man Who Didn't Fly. Bennett only wrote for television for awhile—including the early 60s UK adaptation of the Maigret novels by Simenon—with the exception of two non-mystery books (one of which had the intriguing title The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Atomic Radiation), before abandoning writing altogether in 1966. She died in 1980 at the age of 68.
In The Man Who Didn't Fly, four men are scheduled to take an ill-fated chartered flight to Dublin that crashes into the Irish Channel. Although the bodies can't be recovered, it becomes evident that only three men were on board the plane, yet all four are reported as missing. Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Young have their work count out for them trying to coax clues out of unreliable witnesses including the Wade family, Charles and his daughters Hester and Prudence.
The lives of the Wades intersected with all four of the missing men: Harry Walters, a desperate poet, who was in love with Hester Wade; Joseph Ferguson, a businessman who wife was more interested in Harry; Morgan Price, a nervous guest of the Wades; and Maurice Reid, something of a family friend. Slowly but surely, Lewis and Young piece together the details of the days leading up to the flight, finally uncovering the name of the missing man. But that just sets up a new problem: what happened to him and why?
Bennett's artful plotting was enough to capture the attention of the producers of NBC's Kraft Television Theater who created an episode in 1958 based on The Man Who Didn't Fly starring then 27-year-old William Shatner, Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith of Lost in Space) and Walter Brooke (guest star in just about all TV series in the 60s, 70s, and 80s). The book was also chosen by Julian Symons as part of his 1958 "100 Best Crime Stories" for the London Sunday Times.
But thereafter, a bit of mystery regarding Bennett herself began. She essentially stopped writing crime fiction, something discussed by Martin Edwards both on his blog and in the foreword he wrote for the Black Dagger Crime Series edition of The Man Who Didn't Fly. Bennett only wrote for television for awhile—including the early 60s UK adaptation of the Maigret novels by Simenon—with the exception of two non-mystery books (one of which had the intriguing title The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Atomic Radiation), before abandoning writing altogether in 1966. She died in 1980 at the age of 68.
In The Man Who Didn't Fly, four men are scheduled to take an ill-fated chartered flight to Dublin that crashes into the Irish Channel. Although the bodies can't be recovered, it becomes evident that only three men were on board the plane, yet all four are reported as missing. Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Young have their work count out for them trying to coax clues out of unreliable witnesses including the Wade family, Charles and his daughters Hester and Prudence.
The lives of the Wades intersected with all four of the missing men: Harry Walters, a desperate poet, who was in love with Hester Wade; Joseph Ferguson, a businessman who wife was more interested in Harry; Morgan Price, a nervous guest of the Wades; and Maurice Reid, something of a family friend. Slowly but surely, Lewis and Young piece together the details of the days leading up to the flight, finally uncovering the name of the missing man. But that just sets up a new problem: what happened to him and why?
Bennett's artful plotting was enough to capture the attention of the producers of NBC's Kraft Television Theater who created an episode in 1958 based on The Man Who Didn't Fly starring then 27-year-old William Shatner, Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith of Lost in Space) and Walter Brooke (guest star in just about all TV series in the 60s, 70s, and 80s). The book was also chosen by Julian Symons as part of his 1958 "100 Best Crime Stories" for the London Sunday Times.
Read
January 30, 2021One of the craziest books I've ever read. I hated every page of it. I can't imagine how it ever got past a publisher.
June 7, 2022
Dame Agatha Christie and Her Peers
An intro by Martin Edwards tells us this novel (1955) was nominated for a Gold Dagger Award AND across the pond an Edgar Award, then went unpublished for decades. Imagine, also in 1955, Highsmith's sensational "Talented Mr. Ripley" went relatively unnoticed*. AND, Christie's "Hickory Dickory Death" (yes, 1955) was nominated for nothing but has never been out of print!**
Cast - 2 stars: Dry except for young thief Jackie, but he's only around for a few pages.
Atmosphere - 1 star: Dry. Surprisingly so.
Plot - 3: Four men charter a plane which crashes. One man doesn't board. Interesting!
Investigation - 1 star: 200+ pages of...chatting about poems and cooking and crushes...
Resolution - 1 star: ....but what about Jackie and....oh never mind.
Summary - 1.6 stars: This is a logic problem (Harry was not in Africa, Morgan smoked, Maurice likes whiskey) you might find in a puzzle magazine but stretched out into a novel. Solid idea poorly executed.
*Wow, how times change!
**A LOT!
An intro by Martin Edwards tells us this novel (1955) was nominated for a Gold Dagger Award AND across the pond an Edgar Award, then went unpublished for decades. Imagine, also in 1955, Highsmith's sensational "Talented Mr. Ripley" went relatively unnoticed*. AND, Christie's "Hickory Dickory Death" (yes, 1955) was nominated for nothing but has never been out of print!**
Cast - 2 stars: Dry except for young thief Jackie, but he's only around for a few pages.
Atmosphere - 1 star: Dry. Surprisingly so.
Plot - 3: Four men charter a plane which crashes. One man doesn't board. Interesting!
Investigation - 1 star: 200+ pages of...chatting about poems and cooking and crushes...
Resolution - 1 star: ....but what about Jackie and....oh never mind.
Summary - 1.6 stars: This is a logic problem (Harry was not in Africa, Morgan smoked, Maurice likes whiskey) you might find in a puzzle magazine but stretched out into a novel. Solid idea poorly executed.
*Wow, how times change!
**A LOT!
May 25, 2022
A very British mystery, concerning which out of four men did not make it on to a plane which crashed, leaving three passengers dead. Meandering, well written and a believable conclusion. I enjoyed this.
February 16, 2021
As I started getting into this I was rather confused about how this was going to work out. Four men were scheduled to be on a flight, three showed up, and the plane went down in the sea without a trace. Who missed the flight, and where was he now?
The bulk of the book is the recollections of the Wade family, who were involved with all 4 men. The last 2-3 days around the ill-fated flight are recollected in great detail, which gives this book an odd feeling - more of a soap opera, or drama, or even a play. Young people falling in love, a ne'er do well poet who's an expert on sponging off of others, a renter who's falling apart with secrets, a young thief caught in the house looking for something, a potential con-man being pursued by a mysterious Australian.
It all comes together quite nicely, although a bit predictable as to what happened to the fourth man.
The bulk of the book is the recollections of the Wade family, who were involved with all 4 men. The last 2-3 days around the ill-fated flight are recollected in great detail, which gives this book an odd feeling - more of a soap opera, or drama, or even a play. Young people falling in love, a ne'er do well poet who's an expert on sponging off of others, a renter who's falling apart with secrets, a young thief caught in the house looking for something, a potential con-man being pursued by a mysterious Australian.
It all comes together quite nicely, although a bit predictable as to what happened to the fourth man.
June 15, 2021
If Lewis Carroll and O. Henry had collaborated on a mystery novel this might be it. It had one-dimensional characters, silly dialogue and two of the dumbest females anyone ever came up with. (Hester is on vacation from medical school and I wouldn't let her tie my shoes she was so ditzy.) The mystery doesn't start to gel until the very end and by that point I just didn't care about any of it. The cover, which was sadly the best part of the book, along with my misreading of the blurb, led me to believe it was post-war espionage with a great ending. Those letters on the airplane wing are code for "don't even bother."
September 20, 2020
Quixotic imaginative thriller. Well written and original. Good read and hats off to those who brought this 1955 whodunnit out of retirement...came close to winning the inaugural Gold Dagger award. Martin Edwards comments wryly this is the second time he has written an introduction for a reprint of the book...may there be a third and a fourth as it is worthy of it. As he remarks it is a shame Margot Bennett's output was limited as she found screenwriting more lucrative for she had a sublime talent.
August 22, 2020
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
March 16, 2022
Closer to 2.5. I wanted to like it more, and I'm glad I was not the only one confused by the plotting and the misleading premise.
August 8, 2022
I just could not get into this one. The story premise sounded good, but the writing was quite boring and the dialog and interactions between the characters was often annoying. Much of the time, it seemed like characters popped up that we were supposed to know with little introduction. Maybe I was so bored that I missed specifics, but I couldn't bear to read anymore and just skimmed the solution at the end.
July 20, 2022
3.5 stars. While I enjoyed the writing quite a bit, there's a lot of talking. The mystery itself is kind of unusual and if you are looking for a thriller, or even some action, look somewhere else. But it was engaging as an audiobook, and I might try another from Bennett someday.
July 16, 2021
Was leuk boekie maar zat niet veel sfeer in het verhaal voor de rest wel spannend.
May 22, 2022
First published in 1955, this novel was highly regarded as coming from an author who mysteriously ended her career at the peak of renown. This edition includes a rare short story. "No Bath For the Browns"- a deliciously dastardly tale of a renovation!
I read a few reviews prior to my own reading of this book. They weren't at all promising. So I just address them in general. This novel is about an arranged flight to Dublin in which four men planned to travel but only the pilot and three men's bodies are recovered from the wreckage. What happened to the fourth man? The back of book notes declare this book " an innovative and thoroughly entertaining inversion of the classic whodunit " I concur!! It is a death investigation. Accident or murder? The background information is the key to the investigation but when our detective sergeant attempts to interview the family, witnesses, etc the whole thing becomes farcical. I can see how confusing this book could be to someone unfamiliar with the likes of Wodehouse, or British wit in general. For me, however, it was delightful!!! It's a social tale of money, sloth, greed, avarice, interspersed with humor and human frailties. Perhaps it needs some notation to clarify the wording of the humor. But I digress. I thought it an absolute gem of a book! Funny, laugh out loud clean humor plus an ending I didn't fully see coming...love that about the classic British crime novels; plus the introduction notes on the author make this a welcome edition to the British Library Crime Classics list.
I read a few reviews prior to my own reading of this book. They weren't at all promising. So I just address them in general. This novel is about an arranged flight to Dublin in which four men planned to travel but only the pilot and three men's bodies are recovered from the wreckage. What happened to the fourth man? The back of book notes declare this book " an innovative and thoroughly entertaining inversion of the classic whodunit " I concur!! It is a death investigation. Accident or murder? The background information is the key to the investigation but when our detective sergeant attempts to interview the family, witnesses, etc the whole thing becomes farcical. I can see how confusing this book could be to someone unfamiliar with the likes of Wodehouse, or British wit in general. For me, however, it was delightful!!! It's a social tale of money, sloth, greed, avarice, interspersed with humor and human frailties. Perhaps it needs some notation to clarify the wording of the humor. But I digress. I thought it an absolute gem of a book! Funny, laugh out loud clean humor plus an ending I didn't fully see coming...love that about the classic British crime novels; plus the introduction notes on the author make this a welcome edition to the British Library Crime Classics list.
May 22, 2024
I do like a mid-century British mystery and even more, I like one written by a woman. This one is particularly fun because we know the end result from the start - a chartered plane went down over the Irish Sea, and a bunch of rascals were killed. But which bunch?
July 31, 2021
I have mixed views about this book. It is a classic British mystery. Four men are scheduled to fly in a chartered plane from England to Ireland. However, one of the men doesn’t show up at the appointed time and the plane leaves without him. The plane crashes, killing the three men and the pilot. It is known who the four men are, but not which one missed the flight or where he may now be. The story is told mainly through the vehicle of police interviews of various people and flashbacks to events during the 2 days preceding the flight. Obscure clues are scattered appropriately throughout. The story contains a lot of comedy based on some disreputable individuals and the way some are coping with trying to maintain their inherited aristocratic lifestyle in a decaying manor house with dwindling resources. The police figure it out based on the clues and loose ends are wrapped up. There is a mix of characters including among others a naive 16-year-old girl, a master conman, a mysterious character or two, and a sometimes poet of dubious morals. All of this should result in the type of story I enjoy and give 4 or 5 stars, but it just didn't resonate with me. The comedy aspects were too overdone, the arrival of two unconnected strangers at a crucial point in the story is not plausible and their separate actions odd beyond belief.
August 8, 2020
A charter flight goes down in the Irish Sea. The flight was booked for four passengers, but only three took off. The missing passenger doesn't come forward. What happened to the man who didn't fly?
An oddly structured book, this: police quickly home in on a family — Mr Wade and his two daughters — who knew all four passengers, and who reluctantly tell the story of the last few days before the fatal flight. Also interviewed are the wife of one of the passengers and a mysterious Australian who has been lurking in the village. The book then turns into a logic puzzle, as the police and witnesses reassemble all the evidence to work out who was on the plane.
A weirdly talky book, mostly dialogue, mostly people talking at, rather than to, each other; it reminded me of reading a play. Not remotely believable, with an unnecessary, improbable and cursory romance tacked on in the last chapter, but interesting enough structurally to hold the attention.
(The book also contains a short story by Bennett, "No Bath for the Browns", about a family that moves into a terrible new house.)
An oddly structured book, this: police quickly home in on a family — Mr Wade and his two daughters — who knew all four passengers, and who reluctantly tell the story of the last few days before the fatal flight. Also interviewed are the wife of one of the passengers and a mysterious Australian who has been lurking in the village. The book then turns into a logic puzzle, as the police and witnesses reassemble all the evidence to work out who was on the plane.
A weirdly talky book, mostly dialogue, mostly people talking at, rather than to, each other; it reminded me of reading a play. Not remotely believable, with an unnecessary, improbable and cursory romance tacked on in the last chapter, but interesting enough structurally to hold the attention.
(The book also contains a short story by Bennett, "No Bath for the Browns", about a family that moves into a terrible new house.)
July 19, 2021
I have no problem with crime fiction writers who moved towards making the genre literary rather than puzzle oriented. However, there is a balance to be struck and here that is not the case. The writing propelled the story forward, not the plot nor, indeed, the characters.
As with "The Wife of Bath" the characters here were either colourless or one-dimensional. An interesting structure and premise with detailed flashbacks was all there was to it. Otherwise it was predictable and clichéd.
The depiction of the "nouveaux pauvres" and the financial chancers of the 1950s is accurate, so I found historical interest here. But there is little by way of detection until near the end and rather a lot of irritating and inexplicable behaviour-would a medical student really have no idea about concussion and be unable to ascertain quickly if someone were dead?
Even the surprise at the end was no surprise.
I came back to this having stopped, one third in, a year ago. I found it easier going than anticipated.
Again, a somewhat grudging 3.5 stars.
As with "The Wife of Bath" the characters here were either colourless or one-dimensional. An interesting structure and premise with detailed flashbacks was all there was to it. Otherwise it was predictable and clichéd.
The depiction of the "nouveaux pauvres" and the financial chancers of the 1950s is accurate, so I found historical interest here. But there is little by way of detection until near the end and rather a lot of irritating and inexplicable behaviour-would a medical student really have no idea about concussion and be unable to ascertain quickly if someone were dead?
Even the surprise at the end was no surprise.
I came back to this having stopped, one third in, a year ago. I found it easier going than anticipated.
Again, a somewhat grudging 3.5 stars.
August 17, 2011
Four passengers are scheduled to take a charter flight from England to Ireland. Only three show up, and when the plane crashes into the sea, there's no way to know who took the flight. The police expect the missing man to show up, but that isn't happening. So they must investigate, and they're lead to Hester Wade and her family, who had ties to all four men. There's a businessman, an investor, a poet, and a mysterious hypochondriac. Hester must deal with a pathetic burglar and an arrogant stranger from Australia who has a grudge against one of the missing men.
April 23, 2022
I think I was anticipating a weightier matter to be the driving factor at the core of this mystery, there wasn’t one; and, the reveal was pretty disappointing.
The narrator helped hold my interest and I thought he did a good job with the Aussie bloke.
The narrator helped hold my interest and I thought he did a good job with the Aussie bloke.
August 7, 2020
Very amusing.
A weird mixture of Virginia Woolf and Stella Gibbons in style. After a while I found this book quite pleasing,like vague memories of books I read in holiday houses on rainy days, when young.
A weird mixture of Virginia Woolf and Stella Gibbons in style. After a while I found this book quite pleasing,like vague memories of books I read in holiday houses on rainy days, when young.
January 12, 2021
A different take on the murder mystery as Margot Bennett starts with a plane crash and through Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Young they discover why only three people died and which member didn't fly. Although the story can drag the payoff is worth it.
Want to read
February 9, 2019Synopsis: a plane crashes and four men are reported dead yet one didn't fly. Interesting. Inspector Lewis follows the clues.
July 30, 2020
Very different. Enjoyed it.
August 16, 2020
Weird. Very weird.
April 25, 2022
In some ways this 1955 murder mystery is a curiousity; an idea for a missing man in the face of multiple deaths was daringly original, made possible by a relatively new idea of commercial travel. As Martin Edwards points out in his Introduction to this reprint in the British Library Crime Classics series, its main premise is such an original idea that it defies much description. The product of an exceptionally talented writer, Margot Bennett did not produce many novels, but achieved success with those which did appear. This novel indeed narrowly missed two crime writing awards on either side of the Atlantic in the first years after its publication. It is in some ways an unsettling read, in which the relevant men are genuinely missed, and not just as a potential victim. They are also described as very human, full of contradictions, rather than being uniformly hateful, pleasant or just wealthy.
The basic idea of this novel is simple: a small plane containing a pilot and three passengers crashes into the Irish sea, killing all on board. The problem of the novel is to identify those passengers, as four men were booked to fly, only three actually got on to the plane, and yet four men are missing. Exactly who was on the plane and therefore died is the question of the novel, and what exactly happened to the fourth man. It is not a straightforward mystery, but still has a cast of people to be investigated, questioned, given the chance to tell their story. The format is unusual, but ultimately successful in bringing characters to life. I found it an engaging tale, full of the telling details of life that make it so vivid. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this exceptional book.
Part of the problem is that the plane in question was totally destroyed in a “fireball” which destroyed any chance of retrieving bodies and identifying information. The only option is to discover exactly who boarded the small plane at “Brickford Airport (which) wasn’t much more than a meadow cut by a tarmac path, with a few sheds clustering at one end”. There were small charter planes and a flying club based there; not much by way of facilities or ways of identification of passengers. The one mechanic present just before the ill fated plane departed has been questioned multiple times, and can only recite his response. The pilot had remarked to him that there were only three passengers out of the expected four, and that they would depart without the missing person.The problem is that the missing person has not turned up despite extensive police searching. Four passengers had been booked to travel, only three boarded the plane, but four men were missing. The coroner or insurance companies will not act without identification - “deaths must be documented, and no man is allowed a death certificate without first dying for it”. So the attempt to identify the three men who actually boarded the plane as opposed to the fourth who has disappeared just as completely must continue.
It is, as Edwards writes, difficult to say much about this book without revealing significant details. Suffice to say that it is full of atmosphere: of men wearing suits and hats, people smoking at every opportunity, limited opportunities to communicate. The characters are well drawn with real depth, even when they are frustratingly unsure of details. I recommend this book for its originality and so much more, a worthy addition to the series of reprints.
The basic idea of this novel is simple: a small plane containing a pilot and three passengers crashes into the Irish sea, killing all on board. The problem of the novel is to identify those passengers, as four men were booked to fly, only three actually got on to the plane, and yet four men are missing. Exactly who was on the plane and therefore died is the question of the novel, and what exactly happened to the fourth man. It is not a straightforward mystery, but still has a cast of people to be investigated, questioned, given the chance to tell their story. The format is unusual, but ultimately successful in bringing characters to life. I found it an engaging tale, full of the telling details of life that make it so vivid. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this exceptional book.
Part of the problem is that the plane in question was totally destroyed in a “fireball” which destroyed any chance of retrieving bodies and identifying information. The only option is to discover exactly who boarded the small plane at “Brickford Airport (which) wasn’t much more than a meadow cut by a tarmac path, with a few sheds clustering at one end”. There were small charter planes and a flying club based there; not much by way of facilities or ways of identification of passengers. The one mechanic present just before the ill fated plane departed has been questioned multiple times, and can only recite his response. The pilot had remarked to him that there were only three passengers out of the expected four, and that they would depart without the missing person.The problem is that the missing person has not turned up despite extensive police searching. Four passengers had been booked to travel, only three boarded the plane, but four men were missing. The coroner or insurance companies will not act without identification - “deaths must be documented, and no man is allowed a death certificate without first dying for it”. So the attempt to identify the three men who actually boarded the plane as opposed to the fourth who has disappeared just as completely must continue.
It is, as Edwards writes, difficult to say much about this book without revealing significant details. Suffice to say that it is full of atmosphere: of men wearing suits and hats, people smoking at every opportunity, limited opportunities to communicate. The characters are well drawn with real depth, even when they are frustratingly unsure of details. I recommend this book for its originality and so much more, a worthy addition to the series of reprints.
May 7, 2025
Witnesses drive detectives to drink.
Fans of old English mysteries know the BLCC, which includes both detective novels and collections of stories. I'm impressed with the excellent taste of editor Martin Edwards so I buy any of the series that I catch on sale. This one puzzles me.
Edwards is strong on it because it made the short list of "best mysteries" in the U.S. and overseas when it appeared in 1957. The author was an unknown (and remained so) which may have hurt. Having read it (twice!) I can see why the experts were impressed. It's an unusual approach to mystery writing, but thank God it didn't start a trend.
New mysteries are hard slogging because of their outrageous length and the necessity to delve into the detective's tortured private life. That said, none I've read have been as convoluted as this one. Put it another way, never has a mystery had me so confused for so far into the story. I'm old, but most of the blame lies with the writer.
She tells the story in a murky way similar to the fog in the Irish Sea that might have led to the crash of a small plane. The pilot and three passengers are missing, presumed dead. No bodies have been found and so far there's no hint that a crime has been committed. The police are involved because there were supposed to be FOUR passengers, but one didn't fly and that one is lying low. How can the police identify the dead men until they know which one is still alive?
The theme seems to be that a copper who can solve a crime using forensics is a lucky man indeed. Unreliable they may be, but ANYTHING beats trying to get people to tell you what they saw or heard. The story opens with an anonymous police sergeant trying to drag information out of a surly pub owner about the three passengers who had drinks there before the plane took off. As Gilbert and Sullivan said, a policeman's life is not a happy one.
Eventually we arrive at interviews conducted by Inspector Lewis and Detective-Sergeant Young. I like Lewis, who's an old-style, no-nonsense cop. His creator describes him as "an old, knowing badger, peering from his sett before emerging." In other words, he depends on decades of experience and that experience has made him cautious.
On the other hand, he has skills gained from years of dealing with witnesses and suspects and he can dissemble when he needs to. In an interview with a group of sophisticated, cagey witnesses, he's said to confront them "looking peculiarly solemn and incorruptible, like a judge at an agricultural show." This is a convincing act since everyone knows you can't safely mess around with the owners of prize livestock.
If Lewis is the tough, old-style copper, Sergeant Young represents the direction of law enforcement after WWII. He's educated and well-read and his superior wisely depends on him when the truth can't be found by beating it out of an old lag. It's a nicely-balanced partnership and adds to the book's depth.
Not to pry, but couldn't the author have told us who these men work for? We're told Scotland Yard isn't involved, so they must be local. I've never read a detective story without knowing what agency employed the detective. Just sayin'.
The four men who should have left on the plane to Ireland have all been staying at a small village in the Cotswolds and all are associated with the family of Charles Wade. Wade is a weakling. He's lost money before and is in the process of losing everything. He dreams BIG and no amount of argument can discourage him. He's living proof of the old adage, "No matter how brilliant, a con artist can't steal from a mark unless the mark is greedy and looking for easy money."
While awaiting his windfall, Wade patches up his old house and dreams of turning his one "paying guest" into a tidy income. Will his daughters help? Prudence is 16 with the dramatic self-absorption of that age, but by necessity she's become a shrewd judge of character. Ironically, it's the older sister Hester (a 20-year-old medical student) who's the gullible one. She believes in the goodness of human nature, God help her.
The four missing men are:
Morgan Price - nervous boarder at the Wade's house, who's constantly expecting trouble from his imaginary ailments and from his enemies.
Joe Ferguson - wealthy businessman with a trophy wife and money problems. He claims that his troubles are caused by television eating away at the profits of his cinemas, but there may be more to it.
Maurice Reid - an older gent who befriends the Wades and rents a small cottage to be near them. He's a sweet father-figure to the girls and trying hard to keep their feckless father from gambling away the rest of his money. Those oil wells in Australia are bound to pay huge profits and there's practically no risk. Still, he doesn't want Charles Wade to give him money to invest. Isn't he a good friend?
Harry Walters - poet and pest who moved in with the Fergusons and is being hard to get rid of. He distrusts both Morgan Price and Maurice Reid, but who'll pay attention to a man who never works, cadges shamelessly, and steals from his benefactors? He keeps telling Hester he's no good, but she knows he just needs a loving, supportive wife.
The Wades and Moira Ferguson initially tell Lewis as little as possible. Then we get to read about what actually happened during the days leading up to the flight. Then the Wades decide to level with Lewis and tell him everything. Then the morose pub owner coughs up a little more information and his wife finds the two customers who were there at the same time as the three missing men.
Benson and Smith are as entertaining a couple as I've ever encountered. Smith is obsessed with astrology and (no matter what he hears) he remembers only words that relate to his pet subject. His frenemy Benson has a bee in HIS bonnet (numerology) but he's saner than Smith. Slowly, painfully, Lewis and Young drag bits of information out of them and try to tie them together into a coherent whole.
Two of the men might have been to Australia. Or maybe it was South Africa. Someone said something about Ceylon. (Tea?) They talked about fishing. Woolworths was mentioned. Can you blame Lewis if he daydreams about putting them ALL in prison?
Wait! I forgot to mention the editor (Murry) who shows up early on with a long, strange story about Harry's plan to become a gentleman-criminal, fighting a corrupt system and helping the poor, while making money with little work. Murry's worried that Harry's criminal friends weren't very gentlemanly. They may resent him not showing up for the robbery. Worse, they may think he ratted on them. Was Harry murdered?
A pathetic kid tries to break into the Wade's house. Instead of calling the police, they feed him and hire him to work for them. He seems grateful for a chance to become an honest citizen, but who has the gun? Then there's the Australian lurking around. He's down on everyone, but especially Maurice Reid.
Margot Bennett was Scotland born, but moved to Australia with her family and lived there for years before returning to England. Marryatt (the mysterious Aussie) represents the rough, independent colonial who knows a wrong'un when he sees one. He's seeking revenge, but wants nothing to do with the police. Turning to the police is for sissy Englishmen who can't take care of themselves. Finally, why is everyone so interested in that ruined chapel in the woods with a burial crypt underneath?
Martin Edward seems amazed that this talented writer (and she IS) stopped writing mysteries so soon and then stopped writing entirely in middle age. He casually mentions that she was a married woman with four kids. Gosh, could THAT have had something to do with it?
It's interesting as an oddity. I don't regret reading it and then re-reading most of it to figure out what I missed. I understand that a mystery-writer MUST employ some misdirection to keep the reader from guessing who-dun-it on page twenty. But I prefer books where a reasonably intelligent reader can follow along without having a nervous breakdown. Not sorry I read it, but I wouldn't want to read many like it.
Fans of old English mysteries know the BLCC, which includes both detective novels and collections of stories. I'm impressed with the excellent taste of editor Martin Edwards so I buy any of the series that I catch on sale. This one puzzles me.
Edwards is strong on it because it made the short list of "best mysteries" in the U.S. and overseas when it appeared in 1957. The author was an unknown (and remained so) which may have hurt. Having read it (twice!) I can see why the experts were impressed. It's an unusual approach to mystery writing, but thank God it didn't start a trend.
New mysteries are hard slogging because of their outrageous length and the necessity to delve into the detective's tortured private life. That said, none I've read have been as convoluted as this one. Put it another way, never has a mystery had me so confused for so far into the story. I'm old, but most of the blame lies with the writer.
She tells the story in a murky way similar to the fog in the Irish Sea that might have led to the crash of a small plane. The pilot and three passengers are missing, presumed dead. No bodies have been found and so far there's no hint that a crime has been committed. The police are involved because there were supposed to be FOUR passengers, but one didn't fly and that one is lying low. How can the police identify the dead men until they know which one is still alive?
The theme seems to be that a copper who can solve a crime using forensics is a lucky man indeed. Unreliable they may be, but ANYTHING beats trying to get people to tell you what they saw or heard. The story opens with an anonymous police sergeant trying to drag information out of a surly pub owner about the three passengers who had drinks there before the plane took off. As Gilbert and Sullivan said, a policeman's life is not a happy one.
Eventually we arrive at interviews conducted by Inspector Lewis and Detective-Sergeant Young. I like Lewis, who's an old-style, no-nonsense cop. His creator describes him as "an old, knowing badger, peering from his sett before emerging." In other words, he depends on decades of experience and that experience has made him cautious.
On the other hand, he has skills gained from years of dealing with witnesses and suspects and he can dissemble when he needs to. In an interview with a group of sophisticated, cagey witnesses, he's said to confront them "looking peculiarly solemn and incorruptible, like a judge at an agricultural show." This is a convincing act since everyone knows you can't safely mess around with the owners of prize livestock.
If Lewis is the tough, old-style copper, Sergeant Young represents the direction of law enforcement after WWII. He's educated and well-read and his superior wisely depends on him when the truth can't be found by beating it out of an old lag. It's a nicely-balanced partnership and adds to the book's depth.
Not to pry, but couldn't the author have told us who these men work for? We're told Scotland Yard isn't involved, so they must be local. I've never read a detective story without knowing what agency employed the detective. Just sayin'.
The four men who should have left on the plane to Ireland have all been staying at a small village in the Cotswolds and all are associated with the family of Charles Wade. Wade is a weakling. He's lost money before and is in the process of losing everything. He dreams BIG and no amount of argument can discourage him. He's living proof of the old adage, "No matter how brilliant, a con artist can't steal from a mark unless the mark is greedy and looking for easy money."
While awaiting his windfall, Wade patches up his old house and dreams of turning his one "paying guest" into a tidy income. Will his daughters help? Prudence is 16 with the dramatic self-absorption of that age, but by necessity she's become a shrewd judge of character. Ironically, it's the older sister Hester (a 20-year-old medical student) who's the gullible one. She believes in the goodness of human nature, God help her.
The four missing men are:
Morgan Price - nervous boarder at the Wade's house, who's constantly expecting trouble from his imaginary ailments and from his enemies.
Joe Ferguson - wealthy businessman with a trophy wife and money problems. He claims that his troubles are caused by television eating away at the profits of his cinemas, but there may be more to it.
Maurice Reid - an older gent who befriends the Wades and rents a small cottage to be near them. He's a sweet father-figure to the girls and trying hard to keep their feckless father from gambling away the rest of his money. Those oil wells in Australia are bound to pay huge profits and there's practically no risk. Still, he doesn't want Charles Wade to give him money to invest. Isn't he a good friend?
Harry Walters - poet and pest who moved in with the Fergusons and is being hard to get rid of. He distrusts both Morgan Price and Maurice Reid, but who'll pay attention to a man who never works, cadges shamelessly, and steals from his benefactors? He keeps telling Hester he's no good, but she knows he just needs a loving, supportive wife.
The Wades and Moira Ferguson initially tell Lewis as little as possible. Then we get to read about what actually happened during the days leading up to the flight. Then the Wades decide to level with Lewis and tell him everything. Then the morose pub owner coughs up a little more information and his wife finds the two customers who were there at the same time as the three missing men.
Benson and Smith are as entertaining a couple as I've ever encountered. Smith is obsessed with astrology and (no matter what he hears) he remembers only words that relate to his pet subject. His frenemy Benson has a bee in HIS bonnet (numerology) but he's saner than Smith. Slowly, painfully, Lewis and Young drag bits of information out of them and try to tie them together into a coherent whole.
Two of the men might have been to Australia. Or maybe it was South Africa. Someone said something about Ceylon. (Tea?) They talked about fishing. Woolworths was mentioned. Can you blame Lewis if he daydreams about putting them ALL in prison?
Wait! I forgot to mention the editor (Murry) who shows up early on with a long, strange story about Harry's plan to become a gentleman-criminal, fighting a corrupt system and helping the poor, while making money with little work. Murry's worried that Harry's criminal friends weren't very gentlemanly. They may resent him not showing up for the robbery. Worse, they may think he ratted on them. Was Harry murdered?
A pathetic kid tries to break into the Wade's house. Instead of calling the police, they feed him and hire him to work for them. He seems grateful for a chance to become an honest citizen, but who has the gun? Then there's the Australian lurking around. He's down on everyone, but especially Maurice Reid.
Margot Bennett was Scotland born, but moved to Australia with her family and lived there for years before returning to England. Marryatt (the mysterious Aussie) represents the rough, independent colonial who knows a wrong'un when he sees one. He's seeking revenge, but wants nothing to do with the police. Turning to the police is for sissy Englishmen who can't take care of themselves. Finally, why is everyone so interested in that ruined chapel in the woods with a burial crypt underneath?
Martin Edward seems amazed that this talented writer (and she IS) stopped writing mysteries so soon and then stopped writing entirely in middle age. He casually mentions that she was a married woman with four kids. Gosh, could THAT have had something to do with it?
It's interesting as an oddity. I don't regret reading it and then re-reading most of it to figure out what I missed. I understand that a mystery-writer MUST employ some misdirection to keep the reader from guessing who-dun-it on page twenty. But I prefer books where a reasonably intelligent reader can follow along without having a nervous breakdown. Not sorry I read it, but I wouldn't want to read many like it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews