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Dr. Priestley #20
Hendon's First Case
- GenresMystery
Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
32 people want to read
About the author
John Rhode
150 books31 followersAKA Miles Burton, Cecil Waye, Cecil J.C. Street, I.O., F.O.O..
Cecil John Charles Street, MC, OBE, (1884 - January 1965), known as CJC Street and John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
He produced two long series of novels; one under the name of John Rhode featuring the forensic scientist Dr Priestley, and another under the name of Miles Burton featuring the investigator Desmond Merrion. Under the name Cecil Waye, Street produced four novels: The Figure of Eight; The End of the Chase; The Prime Minister's Pencil; and Murder at Monk's Barn. The Dr. Priestley novels were among the first after Sherlock Holmes to feature scientific detection of crime, such as analysing the mud on a suspect's shoes. Desmond Merrion is an amateur detective who works with Scotland Yard's Inspector Arnold.
Critic and author Julian Symons places this author as a prominent member of the "Humdrum" school of detective fiction. "Most of them came late to writing fiction, and few had much talent for it. They had some skill in constructing puzzles, nothing more, and ironically they fulfilled much better than S. S. Van Dine his dictum that the detective story properly belonged in the category of riddles or crossword puzzles. Most of the Humdrums were British, and among the best known of them were Major John Street.
-Wikipedia
Cecil John Charles Street, MC, OBE, (1884 - January 1965), known as CJC Street and John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
He produced two long series of novels; one under the name of John Rhode featuring the forensic scientist Dr Priestley, and another under the name of Miles Burton featuring the investigator Desmond Merrion. Under the name Cecil Waye, Street produced four novels: The Figure of Eight; The End of the Chase; The Prime Minister's Pencil; and Murder at Monk's Barn. The Dr. Priestley novels were among the first after Sherlock Holmes to feature scientific detection of crime, such as analysing the mud on a suspect's shoes. Desmond Merrion is an amateur detective who works with Scotland Yard's Inspector Arnold.
Critic and author Julian Symons places this author as a prominent member of the "Humdrum" school of detective fiction. "Most of them came late to writing fiction, and few had much talent for it. They had some skill in constructing puzzles, nothing more, and ironically they fulfilled much better than S. S. Van Dine his dictum that the detective story properly belonged in the category of riddles or crossword puzzles. Most of the Humdrums were British, and among the best known of them were Major John Street.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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June 1, 2025Synopsis: when a famous scientific researcher dies, the two police investigators turn to Professor Priestley for guidance.
January 8, 2015
I stopped reading this book after a few chapters. It started off in a promising manner but quickly fizzled out into total failure of suspension of disbelief.
The promising start consisted of the two main characters : the older policeman, who worked his way up through the ranks, giving sage advice to a younger breed of police recruit, the well-educated young man from a higher social class (this book takes place in the 193Os in the UK, when these class distinctions were keenly felt). The crime itself was intriguing : the lab of two research chemists who were close to an important invention has been searched and some scientific apparatus indispensable to their work has been smashed. On top of that, the two scientists come back from a shared dinner with a bad case of what appears to be food poisoning, resulting in the death of one of them.
The fizzling came when the following started to happen :
1. The young inspector on the case takes a very long time to figure out that... perhaps.. the two chemists were poisoned.
2. The thought of asking for the postmortem report doesn't seem to occur to him until his boss points it out.
3. When he receives the phone call that one of the two chemists is dead, he doesn't do anything until the next day.
4. His examination of the dead man's desk is so cursory that he manages to miss not one, but two clues :
- he didn't see a threatening letter. (Was there some type of gentlemanly reluctance to read another person's mail?! That just doesn't make sense in the middle of a crime scene)
- he didn't think of checking behind the desk, where, lo and behold, the weapon used to break in and smash the apparatus is found.
I don't think these were meant as indications that the policeman is incompetent, but as clumsy devices to slow the progress of the story, to drag it out. To me it just sounded totally unrealistic, even for the 1930s, when the pace of life and of police detection was presumably a bit less hectic than nowadays.
The promising start consisted of the two main characters : the older policeman, who worked his way up through the ranks, giving sage advice to a younger breed of police recruit, the well-educated young man from a higher social class (this book takes place in the 193Os in the UK, when these class distinctions were keenly felt). The crime itself was intriguing : the lab of two research chemists who were close to an important invention has been searched and some scientific apparatus indispensable to their work has been smashed. On top of that, the two scientists come back from a shared dinner with a bad case of what appears to be food poisoning, resulting in the death of one of them.
The fizzling came when the following started to happen :
1. The young inspector on the case takes a very long time to figure out that... perhaps.. the two chemists were poisoned.
2. The thought of asking for the postmortem report doesn't seem to occur to him until his boss points it out.
3. When he receives the phone call that one of the two chemists is dead, he doesn't do anything until the next day.
4. His examination of the dead man's desk is so cursory that he manages to miss not one, but two clues :
- he didn't see a threatening letter. (Was there some type of gentlemanly reluctance to read another person's mail?! That just doesn't make sense in the middle of a crime scene)
- he didn't think of checking behind the desk, where, lo and behold, the weapon used to break in and smash the apparatus is found.
I don't think these were meant as indications that the policeman is incompetent, but as clumsy devices to slow the progress of the story, to drag it out. To me it just sounded totally unrealistic, even for the 1930s, when the pace of life and of police detection was presumably a bit less hectic than nowadays.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews