I would normally start a review like this with the mild disclaimer that I’m not a huge fan of thrillers, so I might be missing some of the enjoyment others would find in this book.
That said, I don’t think the issues I had with this one are
going to be unique to me. Mostly, frankly, it’s a question of pace. There is
so, so much talking, even for a book over 90 years old. Too many cases
of men sitting down over a drink or a smoke and describing their activity in far too many
words when it would be better for the author to describe the
action and leave the conversation as ‘X told X what had happened and the
address of the house they had finally followed him to…’
It opens promisingly. A talented young scientist (Campbell)
has been working on a way to make fuel more efficient. If successful it will of
course be worth a fortune.
The very night Campbell makes a breakthrough he disappears. Supposedly the owner of the business, Blakely, had rung him and invited him to his country place that evening, and all excited to show his mentor his work, Campbell packed up his papers (luckily not quite all of them) and went.
But that invitation wasn’t from Blakely.
Blakely believes it’s kidnapping, and calls in Scotland Yard to get MacDonald on the case, but of course all through our sleuths have to consider the possibility that it's a blind, that Campbell always meant to run off to the highest bidder as soon as his work was complete.
There are good bits – the girlfriend fails to fall into the fairly standard trap of someone pretending to be Campbell’s friend and trying to kidnap her, and turns the tables rather nicely. Campbell’s ingenious use of a cat to get a message out.
There's no lack of action - stake outs and break ins and a pilot who flies MacDonald across the country to stage an emergency landing on
someone’s country estate (as with other earlier Loracs I have read MacDonald still has
a bit of gentleman sleuth about him, and has some posh friends).
But still there is so much talking, and often in such a long winded way, that the plot just stagnates. I also felt cross that a
very, very significant telephone call happened off the page, which meant that
the reader didn’t know what the main sleuths knew.
That call is between MacDonald and Blakely, which leads to my
other whinge. Throughout the book Blakely remains one of the main sleuths, and
however much he protests he believes in Campbell’s innocence and however avuncular Lorac makes him every time he appears, I can’t help feeling he has a vested interest
and shouldn’t be involved in the investigation at all.
Finally, as well I think I had a problem with stakes. Frankly, I didn't see enough of Campbell to feel worried about the possible kidnapping. I
did feel some engagement with the brother and sister who are his girlfriend and friend, but they seemed to fade out after
a bit and only came in again at the end.
As far as the industrial espionage element went I just
didn’t care (I mean, so what if one rich person might end up not as rich as he
expected, and another rich person might be better off?), and every time it came
up in the text I had to resist the urge to skip forward.
I should add that I read this in
the British Library reading rooms, as copies of the book are quite rare. It’s
not one that’s been republished yet (only 3 years from falling out of copyright
in the UK though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was fairly shortly) and I can only see a
few reviews online.
All are more positive than mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment