Hallows Green is a isolated street on the edge of Barncaster – ten detached houses populated, with a couple of exceptions, but a friendly group of people. Lawyers, doctors, octopus-god worshippers, all the usual occupations…
But tensions are rising in Hallows Green. Threatening notes in varying forms have been received by most of the inhabitants, all of which seem to be foretelling death in some way, shape or form. But when the threats begin to turn physical, such as an “accidental” electrocution, Admiral Sir Hector Sapperton, KCB, occupant of house number seven, calls on his friend, amateur sleuth Desmond Merrion to look into things.
But Merrion is perplexed as nothing seems to make any sense. Even when a body turns up, it seems that the wrong person has been killed…
The forty-fifth (I think) novel written under the Miles Burton pseudonym by John Street aka John Rhode, all (I think) of which feature Desmond Merrion and/or Inspector Arnold, and it’s more evidence, to me at least, that while the John Rhode-penned Dr Priestley books were starting to go off the boil at this point, he was still writing entertaining mysteries under this pseudonym.
First of all, it’s a intriguing set-up – why would everyone in the same street be sent threatening messages of varying levels of menace? When the attacks begin, how serious are they – are they just warnings or failed attempts at murder? And were the eventual murder victims the targets all along?
You might notice the use of the word “eventual” and recall the fact that a long wait for a murder victim usually is a red rag to this reader – it’s in the Puzzle Doc-ologue after all – but it’s often the exception that proves the rule. I was completely gripped by this one – given this is, as I said, book forty-five in the series, it feels remarkably fresh and different.
There’s even some logical deductions about the murderer, with some earlier events ending up having a different significance. All in all, it’s an entertaining and intriguing puzzle and definitely not the sort of book that should be out of print or being lost under the libel of humdrum. If you see a copy – which you won’t unfortunately – then do give it a go. There is a Kindle version, but given it is published by a company who don’t even have a website, pretty sure it’s been scraped from an online library so do think twice before giving them any money, given that the book is still in copyright.
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 
One of my favourites. I not ashamed to say that I read the Golden Age novelists as much for the humor as anything else. I’ve always felt that there’s enough grue in the news at present , thank you very much. Reading Burton’s Beware Your Neighbor and Death in a Duffle Coat remain very happy reading memories. And I do re-read them. It’s like hearing a favorite piece of music.
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Oh, I’ve got Duffel Coat and not read it. I’ll move it to the top of the pile. Thanks!
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I enjoyed this one too, it has some interesting affinities with A Murder Is Announced, which came out around that time. I sometimes wonder whether these authors talked shop on their works in progress while dining with the Detection Club.
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I was wondering, and I expect you’ll know this, if A Village Afraid, the preceding title, had some resemblance in plot – just from the title
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A parallel with “Murder is Announced” is rather helpful I think in explaining what separates a great GAD writer from an also-run. In Christie’s book there is a logical reason why the murderer had to do the deed in such a complicated way. In Street’s book really there is no convincing explanation why all the rigamarole before the actual murder was even necessary from the villain’s POV. It sort of feels like Street tried to set-up something way too complicated in the first half of the book and eventually got entangled in the intricacies of his own plot.
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To clarify a couple of things you were unsure of: Merrion and Arnold are both absent from the 1st Burton book ‘The Hardway Diamond Mystery’ and also ‘Murder At The Moorings’ (1932) which is non-series.
Additionally, Arnold does not appear in the first two books in the series ‘Secret Of High Eldersham’ and ‘The Three Crimes’, though he is mentioned briefly in the latter. Merrion’s co-detective in those is called Inspector Young. After that, it’s Merrion/Arnold all the way (except Moorings as mentioned above) apart from:
No Merrion in ‘Menace on the Downs’, ‘Death Leaves No Card’, ‘Death of Two Brothers’ or ‘This Undesirable Residence’ and no Arnold in ‘Murder Unrecognised’.
Hope this helps.
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The ebook and print book can be found on WorldCat Discovery. I get to WorldCat Discovery through my local library link to InterLibrary Loan.
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This is presumably the source for the illegal (or at least immoral) copy. I figured there was one. If you can get to a copy legitimately, this one is definitely worth it.
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The publisher of the kindle edition is one Rare Treasure Editions. I find they have published kindle editions of several other Miles Burton/John Rhode books including Death in a Duffle Coat and that too at very moderate prices ! I think they are doing a good service to mystery lovers !
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And a massive disservice to the estate of the authors. They have presumably chosen not to release the rights which is their choice. Theft is still theft, even if it’s the only way to obtain something.
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This theft is very trivial since the book was published 74 years back and the author died 60 years ago. In my opinion, the copyright laws need to be made less stringent.
There are more serious, big thefts taking place nowadays. I notice new books by present authors appearing in Amazon and then available for free download at certain sites only after a few days ! (The impossible crime book written by JJ appeared at such sites only after 2 days)
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Well I hope you’re just looking at those “certain sites”
You might think the theft is trivial. If it was legal, then you might think that Rare Treasure Editions might, say, have their own website, rather than scraping pdfs from online libraries. This is the same company that has released a small number of Carol Carnac titles that coincidentally are the same ones released by the British Library. They are thieves, nothing else, profiting from their thefts. If you choose to deal with them, if you choose to condone their piracy, then that is your choice, but don’t expect me to endorse these criminals or condone people who knowingly fund them.
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I have just purchased and returned the Amazon edition of John Rhode’s “Death at the Helm” as it is really poorly formatted, every paragraph is broken into two line couplets at random points and with random hyphenation. Even at 99p, the book is utterly unreadable. However, the big river company seem to do very little about this sort of problem. I had my review privileges stopped because, after 10 plus years of reading and reviewing I had the temerity to criticise Amazon by name in 3 reviews. (Other reviews appear to do the same thing and survive!)
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Rare Treasure Editions, I presume (checks – yes, it was). In other words, a dodgy scan taken from another source with a copy of the original cover banged on the front with no thought of paying royalties to the estate. Not for me, and, as you say, buyer beware…
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