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Desmond Merrion #30
The 3 Corpse Trick
IN the afternoon of Wed-nesday, June 7th, Wendy Burge takes the bus from the county town of Deaning in Deanshire to the outlying village of Goose Common, where until recently she lived with her husband Peter, to make her usual collection for the Deanshire County Hospital. From this journey she never returns. Her body is found the next day floating in the River Lure
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
23 people want to read
About the author
Miles Burton
90 books25 followersAKA John Rhode, 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
March 23, 2020
B–:
The first I've read of the Desmond Merrion series and what immediately strikes me about him is that he has utterly no filter. He'll come out with lines like "It's extremely probable that ____murdered ___" or "I think we can almost certainly say that ____ was involved with ____" with such assurance, only to completely disregard his own theory on the following page. He'll also just casually break into people's houses without a moment's thought.
I'm not convinced that Burton creates enough genuine suspects, and there isn't a great deal of personality to the book either. Still, it's a mostly well-reasoned mystery concerning petty crime and desperate measures, with a solution that did genuinely catch me off guard. It also feels quite modern for a book written in 1946.
The first I've read of the Desmond Merrion series and what immediately strikes me about him is that he has utterly no filter. He'll come out with lines like "It's extremely probable that ____murdered ___" or "I think we can almost certainly say that ____ was involved with ____" with such assurance, only to completely disregard his own theory on the following page. He'll also just casually break into people's houses without a moment's thought.
I'm not convinced that Burton creates enough genuine suspects, and there isn't a great deal of personality to the book either. Still, it's a mostly well-reasoned mystery concerning petty crime and desperate measures, with a solution that did genuinely catch me off guard. It also feels quite modern for a book written in 1946.
January 20, 2018
Classic golden age mystery, well overdue a reprint. Full review at classicmystery.wordpress.com
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews