Littlejohn on Leave - George Bellairs

I read this book in three evening sittings at the British Library in a red hardback published in 1941 by John Gifford Ltd of 113 Charing Cross Rd. It's the first book of the Thomas Littlejohn series, now out of print and as far as I can tell impossible to obtain online (25 dollars for a facsimile dustjacket if you’re interested though!). 

Bellairs, whose real name was Harold Blundell, was a prolific and popular author who doesn’t seem to have been particularly well paid for his writing. According to The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards, Anthony Berkeley tried to advise Bellairs (real name Harold Blundell) to ‘cash in on the gusto while you’ve got it’ and I’ve seen elsewhere that he had to continue in his job at the bank, although it occurs to me that possibly he liked his job at the bank and liked his publisher and didn’t want to change. From what I've gleaned from online sources and prologues Blundell's writing enabled him to fund holidays to France and retire to the Isle of Man, where he continued to write until his death at the age of 79, leaving a widow, Gladys, to whom he had been married for over 50 years. He also wrote articles for the Manchester Guardian and did charity work - and this first ever book was apparently written while Bellairs/Blundell was an air raid warden. 

Arguably not a jet setting lifestyle, but a full one. 

Regarding the book itself I think it’s fair to say that while it’s not terrible, I can see why it's not one of the ones that have been chosen for republishing. I've read - and enjoyed - five of Bellairs books in recent reprints, and would describe him here as a writer not yet in his stride. The dysfunctional marriages are not as subtle, the character of Littlejohn is less well developed, the mystery more plodding. Information we don’t need – for example the duck eggs tasting of fish or the temperament of the villagers – is repeated multiple times as though he were writing a serial and we might have forgotten, while information we might need repeating around keys is not. The humour doesn’t always land like it does in the later books I’ve read either.

Bellairs likes his descriptions of place too, and where in the later books they will feel natural, arising from the thoughts of those seeing them, here it feels as if the author is dropping into a special literary mode. One particular example that actually made me cringe was: The feathered choir was busy rejoicing with it’s dawn-song, oblivious of the doings of men.   

But probably more annoying to the reader who expects fair play will be how clues are held back.

Consider this line: (Inspector Totridge) told him the news he just received over the telephone. Littlejohn whistled.

And of another phone call in a later chapter: His face grew grave as he listened to the voice excitedly chirping it’s tale from the other end, but there was a look of satisfaction in his eyes.

“Well done.” He said. “Good man.”

And both times the reader doesn't get told what was said. 

That said, it's readable. There is a genuinely believable frame up at the end and it gets a bit more exciting, but in conclusion, Bellairs wrote much better books than this and many of them are readily available. You're probably better off with one of those.