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Duncan Maclain Mystery #4
Blind Man's Bluff
In una notte d'inverno, nella sede di New York della società di investimenti M. T. & T. Company, un uomo precipita nell'atrio dalla balconata dell'ottavo piano. Blake Hadfield, questo il suo nome, era l'ex presidente della società, fallita sei anni prima, ed era cieco. Suicidio, incidente o delitto? La polizia propende decisamente per quest'ultimo e appunta i suoi sospetti sul figlio della vittima, la sola persona, oltre al guardiano notturno, a trovarsi nell'edificio. Ma per il capitano Duncan Maclain, l'investigatore al quale la famiglia si è affidata nella speranza che riesca a scagionare il ragazzo, troppe cose non quadrano e fra queste la misteriosa scomparsa degli spiccioli che erano nella tasca del morto, di una penna stilografica, di un fermacarte e di un rotolo di spago. Man mano che le indagini proseguono, la morte di Hadfield si configura sempre più come un delitto impossibile. E forse non è l'unico. Il solo modo per arrivare alla soluzione è ricostruirne la meccanica mettendosi nei panni della vittima, cosa che solo Maclain può fare, perché anche lui è cieco.
- GenresMystery
218 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1943
4 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Baynard H. Kendrick
58 books11 followersAlso wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hayward
Kendrick was an American lawyer and executive who became a full-time writer in 1932. His first mystery novel, Blood on Lake Louisa was published in 1934.
In 1914 Kendrick was the first American to enlist in the Canadian Army, one hour after that country declared war.
He married Edythe Stevens in 1919 and Jean Morris in 1971, and became an executive and manager of hotels and publishing companies. Kendrick was the organizer and only sighted member of the Blinded Veterans Association.
He was also a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America and held membership #1. In the 1960s he retired to Florida.
Kendrick was an American lawyer and executive who became a full-time writer in 1932. His first mystery novel, Blood on Lake Louisa was published in 1934.
In 1914 Kendrick was the first American to enlist in the Canadian Army, one hour after that country declared war.
He married Edythe Stevens in 1919 and Jean Morris in 1971, and became an executive and manager of hotels and publishing companies. Kendrick was the organizer and only sighted member of the Blinded Veterans Association.
He was also a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America and held membership #1. In the 1960s he retired to Florida.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 31, 2020
A thrilling detective story. The blind detective is more of a superhero character than a reasonable representation of a blind person, but he is fun to read about as such.
December 13, 2023
Blind Man's Bluff is the best Kendrick mystery I've read so far* and is absolutely deserving of your time. If you want an unusual detective, Kendrick's got that. Captain Duncan Maclain was blinded during WWI and has spent years working on methods to help him navigate in a world of darkness and to strengthen his other senses in realistic ways to help compensate for his lack of sight. He also has two dogs to help him--one to serve as a guide and the other to serve as a guard/protector. Drieste is highly trained, is fearless under fire, and will attack anyone who thinks of threatening Maclain. To add to this interesting set-up for a detective, in this mystery, Kendrick has thrown in a bonus. Not only is our detective blind, but so is one of our first victims.
If you like impossible crimes, then Kendrick's got that too. Here we have a string of deaths that the upper levels of the police have called suicides. Beginning with a man who apparently shot at Blake Hadfield and merely blinded him before turning the pistol upon himself and followed by a string of victims who plunged to their deaths from great heights. With no one around to push them or help them over the balcony or out the window. Even though his superiors believe in suicide, Lieutenant Davis doesn't and he's all set to figure out how Seth Hadfield, Blake's son, managed to kill not only his father, but a shyster lawyer and the nightwatchman at Blake Hadfield's office building. When the friends of Seth's mentioned above call on Maclain to clear the young man and discover the truth, he agrees with Davis that it's murder--but he has a different killer in mind. All he has to do is figure out how someone could "push" men off the edge without being anywhere near the buildings.
If you not only like an impossible crime, but an ingenious method for accomplishing it then once again, Kendrick's got you covered. It's both ingenious and terrifying. And he plays fair with the reader. The clues are all there waiting for the observant armchair detective to pick them up and put them together for a clever solution. I'll just go ahead and confess...I wasn't observant or clever enough. I did spot the killer, but that wasn't because I picked up the right clues. It was based on behavior and my impressions of the person from the moment they walked onstage. And I certainly couldn't have told you how they did it.
If you like impossible crimes, then Kendrick's got that too. Here we have a string of deaths that the upper levels of the police have called suicides. Beginning with a man who apparently shot at Blake Hadfield and merely blinded him before turning the pistol upon himself and followed by a string of victims who plunged to their deaths from great heights. With no one around to push them or help them over the balcony or out the window. Even though his superiors believe in suicide, Lieutenant Davis doesn't and he's all set to figure out how Seth Hadfield, Blake's son, managed to kill not only his father, but a shyster lawyer and the nightwatchman at Blake Hadfield's office building. When the friends of Seth's mentioned above call on Maclain to clear the young man and discover the truth, he agrees with Davis that it's murder--but he has a different killer in mind. All he has to do is figure out how someone could "push" men off the edge without being anywhere near the buildings.
If you not only like an impossible crime, but an ingenious method for accomplishing it then once again, Kendrick's got you covered. It's both ingenious and terrifying. And he plays fair with the reader. The clues are all there waiting for the observant armchair detective to pick them up and put them together for a clever solution. I'll just go ahead and confess...I wasn't observant or clever enough. I did spot the killer, but that wasn't because I picked up the right clues. It was based on behavior and my impressions of the person from the moment they walked onstage. And I certainly couldn't have told you how they did it.
September 27, 2025
Excerpt from: "Blind Man's Bluff" by Baynard Kendrick. Scribd/Everand:
The M. T. & T. had been a headache from the start. Harold Lawson was a born accountant, and he had an inward hunch that Blake Hadfield had emerged from the M. T. & T. crash with something more than his enormous salary salted away. The courts had held differently. Then had come Hadfield’s blinding and Sprague’s suicide to place an even greater stench in the public’s nostrils at any mention of the M. T. & T. Now, six years later, Hadfield’s violent death had rocketed the defunct Trust Company into unwelcome notoriety again. Murder, the police had hinted… In a desperate hope of proving that Blake Hadfield had committed suicide, and because he knew Sybella had reasons of her own, Lawson had persuaded Sybella Ford to accompany him on a visit to another blind man—Captain Duncan Maclain.
“I feel rather silly,” Sybella admitted, taking a third cigarette from Lawson and lighting it from her second.“What can this man do that the police can’t do better, Harold?”
“He can look at this through a blind man’s eyes, paradoxically speaking,” Lawson declared. “I know Davis of the Homicide Squad fairly well. He’s a tough one to shake loose from an idea..but I do know that the Homicide Squad and the newspapers, too, have faith in what he says. I’m hoping he can put a bee in Davis’ ear.”
“Then you don’t believe his son killed him?”
“Heavens, no,” said Lawson. “I don’t believe he was killed. Do you?”
The M. T. & T. had been a headache from the start. Harold Lawson was a born accountant, and he had an inward hunch that Blake Hadfield had emerged from the M. T. & T. crash with something more than his enormous salary salted away. The courts had held differently. Then had come Hadfield’s blinding and Sprague’s suicide to place an even greater stench in the public’s nostrils at any mention of the M. T. & T. Now, six years later, Hadfield’s violent death had rocketed the defunct Trust Company into unwelcome notoriety again. Murder, the police had hinted… In a desperate hope of proving that Blake Hadfield had committed suicide, and because he knew Sybella had reasons of her own, Lawson had persuaded Sybella Ford to accompany him on a visit to another blind man—Captain Duncan Maclain.
“I feel rather silly,” Sybella admitted, taking a third cigarette from Lawson and lighting it from her second.“What can this man do that the police can’t do better, Harold?”
“He can look at this through a blind man’s eyes, paradoxically speaking,” Lawson declared. “I know Davis of the Homicide Squad fairly well. He’s a tough one to shake loose from an idea..but I do know that the Homicide Squad and the newspapers, too, have faith in what he says. I’m hoping he can put a bee in Davis’ ear.”
“Then you don’t believe his son killed him?”
“Heavens, no,” said Lawson. “I don’t believe he was killed. Do you?”
February 14, 2018
I recently picked up Blind Man’s Bluff by Baynard Kendrick (Triangle Books!) at Green Element Resale and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I later discovered that this author is, like, one of the biggest classic mystery writers from my favorite time periods and was even in all these writing associations, so I clearly should not have been surprised.
It starts off with an attempted murder/completed suicide in the past, and six years later, the intended victim – who had been blinded by the attempt – is finally murdered. Or did he jump? At first his son is to blame, but soon the police are baffled. That’s when they call in our investigator hero.
The investigator is also blind, and is like a sort of proto-Daredevil, his other senses letting him catch all sorts of intricate details others miss. He soon realizes the past attempted murder/suicide may not be so simple either.
Matters get even more complicated as a lawyer dies in the same confusing manner – apparent, inexplicable suicide in a locked room, with a strange clue from six years ago left in his apartment. Then a security guard dies in the same way as the rest, again, and still there’s no proof.
Finally it’s up to our investigator protagonist to bluff the suspected murderer, but there’s an extra variable that he couldn’t have possibly planned for…
How does he finally catch the murderer?
Blind Man’s Bluff delivered exactly that – a blind man bluffing. And it was really quite good! I wasn’t sure how a blind detective would work out, and prepared myself for it to be terrible, but nah, it worked out really well and was a very fun ride. The murder method was very creative, and it was fun seeing everything tie together in the end. It was possible to guess who the murderer was, but I didn’t. I had a hunch, but I won’t lie, I was nowhere near confident that I was right.
It takes place in a larger world that was good at times, but at times confusing – some of the characters served no purpose in this story, but were included just because they were characters from the universe that needed to make an appearance. It wasn’t a huge setback, but it sidetracked the plot sometimes. The characters themselves were hard to keep straight every now and then, so this didn’t help.
There was also a random, underdeveloped, and completely unnecessary “romance” (if you can even call it that) shoved into the side of this story, which was terrible and weakened the book a great deal during the few sections it was mentioned in. This was definitely the biggest flaw in the book, but weird romances are shoehorned into most books in this period, so it wasn’t totally unexpected.
All in all, though, Blind Man’s Bluff was a good book. If you’re a fan of mysteries in the 1900-1959 era, check it out!
It starts off with an attempted murder/completed suicide in the past, and six years later, the intended victim – who had been blinded by the attempt – is finally murdered. Or did he jump? At first his son is to blame, but soon the police are baffled. That’s when they call in our investigator hero.
The investigator is also blind, and is like a sort of proto-Daredevil, his other senses letting him catch all sorts of intricate details others miss. He soon realizes the past attempted murder/suicide may not be so simple either.
Matters get even more complicated as a lawyer dies in the same confusing manner – apparent, inexplicable suicide in a locked room, with a strange clue from six years ago left in his apartment. Then a security guard dies in the same way as the rest, again, and still there’s no proof.
Finally it’s up to our investigator protagonist to bluff the suspected murderer, but there’s an extra variable that he couldn’t have possibly planned for…
How does he finally catch the murderer?
Blind Man’s Bluff delivered exactly that – a blind man bluffing. And it was really quite good! I wasn’t sure how a blind detective would work out, and prepared myself for it to be terrible, but nah, it worked out really well and was a very fun ride. The murder method was very creative, and it was fun seeing everything tie together in the end. It was possible to guess who the murderer was, but I didn’t. I had a hunch, but I won’t lie, I was nowhere near confident that I was right.
It takes place in a larger world that was good at times, but at times confusing – some of the characters served no purpose in this story, but were included just because they were characters from the universe that needed to make an appearance. It wasn’t a huge setback, but it sidetracked the plot sometimes. The characters themselves were hard to keep straight every now and then, so this didn’t help.
There was also a random, underdeveloped, and completely unnecessary “romance” (if you can even call it that) shoved into the side of this story, which was terrible and weakened the book a great deal during the few sections it was mentioned in. This was definitely the biggest flaw in the book, but weird romances are shoehorned into most books in this period, so it wasn’t totally unexpected.
All in all, though, Blind Man’s Bluff was a good book. If you’re a fan of mysteries in the 1900-1959 era, check it out!
August 26, 2023
Really should be 2.5 stars. Not atrocious, but so much talk and speculation and endless what if games, and the story just didn't keep my attention enough to endure all the blah-blah-blah. Captain Duncan MacIain is a clever construct, but it winds up seeming like just a gimmick to have a blind detective when the story just isn't interesting. Too bad.
June 24, 2019
Giallo molto scorrevole e ben scritto. Straordinario il metodo impiegato dall'omicida per far sì che le vittime cadessero senza che lui si trovasse sul luogo. Eccellente anche la figura di Duncan Maclain. Consigliato.
May 20, 2025
Excellent mystery story. As usual Maclain solves everything no matter how difficult the riddle is. The killer displays a very ingenious way of killing, but Maclain discovers everything risking his own life.
November 14, 2023
What a well plotted story.
August 11, 2023
The American Blind Detective
↓ Other American GADF on my TBR ↓
1. SS Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case
2. Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Borrowed Brunette
3. Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s The Cape Cod Mystery
When a bank’s president falls eight stories to his death in the building’s lobby, blind detective Captain Duncan Maclain is asked to investigate. He shows little interest in the matter until it is revealed that the dead man, Blake Hadfield, was blind…
This was my first experience with Baynard Kendrick, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The introduction and forward in my Penzler Classic edition made all the difference. I loved learning about the inspiration behind Kendrick’s blind detective and his lifelong advocacy for blind veterans. Having that background knowledge, I was able to appreciate Captain Maclain’s demeanor and sleuthing abilities tenfold. Blinded during WWI, Maclain experienced blindness as one who must adapt to his new reality and train himself with a new set of skills and a new mindset. I also loved the inclusion of his guide dogs, Schnucke and Driest.
Prior to this, the only blind detective with which I was familiar was Max Carrados by the British writer, Ernest Bramah. This example of a blind protagonist acted as yet another influence for Kendrick to pick up his pen because he felt Bramah set unrealistic standards for blind people and failed to present an accurate and capable detective within the bounds of one’s actual abilities.
I fully intend on returning to this detective when the opportunity arises. So, The Odor of Violets, I have my eye on you!
I discuss this book in my July Wrap on Booktube. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/WYcazV8nbwg
↓ Other American GADF on my TBR ↓
1. SS Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case
2. Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Borrowed Brunette
3. Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s The Cape Cod Mystery
When a bank’s president falls eight stories to his death in the building’s lobby, blind detective Captain Duncan Maclain is asked to investigate. He shows little interest in the matter until it is revealed that the dead man, Blake Hadfield, was blind…
This was my first experience with Baynard Kendrick, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The introduction and forward in my Penzler Classic edition made all the difference. I loved learning about the inspiration behind Kendrick’s blind detective and his lifelong advocacy for blind veterans. Having that background knowledge, I was able to appreciate Captain Maclain’s demeanor and sleuthing abilities tenfold. Blinded during WWI, Maclain experienced blindness as one who must adapt to his new reality and train himself with a new set of skills and a new mindset. I also loved the inclusion of his guide dogs, Schnucke and Driest.
Prior to this, the only blind detective with which I was familiar was Max Carrados by the British writer, Ernest Bramah. This example of a blind protagonist acted as yet another influence for Kendrick to pick up his pen because he felt Bramah set unrealistic standards for blind people and failed to present an accurate and capable detective within the bounds of one’s actual abilities.
I fully intend on returning to this detective when the opportunity arises. So, The Odor of Violets, I have my eye on you!
I discuss this book in my July Wrap on Booktube. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/WYcazV8nbwg
August 9, 2023
Much better and sharper than I expected. I read the first of these that Otto Penzler reprinted, and it was...fine. The most interesting part was the author's story, which combined enormous sympathy for and lifelong advocacy of blind veterans after his experience with the astonishing deductive abilities of a British soldier he encountered in a hospital during WWI, leading him to create a plausible blind hero. But there's a real crispness to this one, a zing to much of the prose: "Bentley, never at his best when confronted with anything unusual, found it difficult to keep himself composed in the presence of Duncan Maclain [our Daredevil-like hero]. He had through arduous practice mastered a trick of gazing intently into a listener's eyes to drive home the ineradicable accuracy of his statements, especially if he was a trifle unsure." Later: "You gave us a long spiel in your office about our knowing our business. Now this thing's got you asking questions like Dick Tracy trying to figure out how the Mole got away." Not to mention that we get four-count 'em-four impossible crimes, the method by which they are committed being one of the better ones I've seen--for me, a lot of the locked-room solutions I've encountered elsewhere are either banal and disappointing or ludicrously exotic, and this one is actually quite clever. Not a great book by any means, but a fun surprise.
July 4, 2023
Exceedingly clever.
Read
July 27, 2023Too many POVs for me
November 12, 2023
For my full review click on the link below:
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https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
April 17, 2015
My first real mystery.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews