It has been a while since I have read an obscure new-to-me author. This is no bad thing per say, as I have been enjoying the many reprints which have been coming out, and I have also liked returning to familiar names. However, there is a special kind of excitement when you pick up an old book, by an author you’ve not really heard anything about online. It is an opportunity to go into the unknown and you don’t know what you’re going to get.
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That said, when I put this review together, I looked online for reviews for David Whitelaw and I did find one, and I was not surprised where I found it, as John at Pretty Sinister blog, is renowned for reviewing rare and unusual authors. The title he reviewed, back in 2011, was Whitelaw’s Horror on the Loch (1937).
When looking up a bibliography for this author, publication dates seem to vary a little online, depending on which website you look at, and so do the titles that are included. However, 56 seems to be the most consistent total figure. It is hard to say how many of his novels are detective stories, as Whitelaw seems to have written quite a few thrillers/romantic thrillers. He was a journalist, illustrator, and editor, who worked in New York and Paris, as well as London. He also produced the spelling game Lexicon.
Synopsis
Harvey Brent is invited to the rural Hampshire residence of Sir Bernard Ferrin, who is married to the beautiful and much younger Enid.Unsurprisingly, Bernard becomes increasingly jealous of his wife’s friendship with the architect developing their gardens, Paul Travers. Brent observes the emotional pressure rising and fears the worst. Yet he breathes a sigh of relief when it looks like it has blown over. But this sigh is too precipitous as the following morning Sir Bernard Ferrin is discovered shot in the garden and the evidence begins to mount against the architect and the victim’s wife also begins to come under suspicion. Will Brent be able to unravel the truth? And will he like it once he does?
Overall Thoughts
This is a mystery which feels old for the 1920s, which is less surprising when you note that Whitelaw began his writing career in the 1890s according to Wikipedia, although other sources place the start in the 1910s. Mystery at Furze Acre reads like a mystery which could easily have been published 10 or 20 years earlier.
The first reason for this is the fictional foreword, which is supposedly written by barrister, Harvey Brent. This is a traditional element as Victorian mysteries often placed a legal professional in a key position and such figures were sometimes even the ones to solve the mystery under investigation (see Robert Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret (1862)). In Whitelaw’s novel, Harvey fulfils that role, although the story itself is supposedly written by a newspaper reporter friend of his, Freddy Marston. The foreword explains all of this in the expected manner, with Harvey being initially reluctant to read the story, as well as the usual qualifying remarks about the newspaper reporter needing to use his imagination for writing the connecting scenes that they could not be present for or interview relevant parties about.
I expected Freddy to be the main investigative lead or to at least be the assistant to an amateur sleuth, but he is not, and he barely features in the story at all. Harvey Brent is the amateur sleuth, as I have already mentioned and the foreword also allows him to introduce us to the future victim, Sir Bernard Ferrin. In addition, he relates how he first met Bernard at a club dinner. They chatted about criminal cases afterwards and unfortunately this discussion rather gives the game away regarding Bernard’s death. Consequently, part of me thinks it might be a good idea to skip the foreword until the end.
Whitelaw tells rather than shows the way Sir Bernard Ferrin’s mind is deteriorating, due to anxieties about becoming mad, as well as because of his increasing jealousy towards his wife and the architect, Paul Travers. Furthermore, the author is also rather verbose in the way he describes how Harvey Brent worries about the consequences of the growing tension within the household:
‘Little by little the idea of impending doom had grown, until it had become an obsession. He was as one who awaited the rising of the curtain upon a drama. Furze Acres was set for tragedy. Almost he found himself wishing that it would declare itself… end the suspense. This fighting in the dark, against an enemy he could not see, did not appeal to Harvey Brent.’
The odd flowery passage is bearable, but alas it is more of a persistent feature in the author’s writing style. It is almost painful to read the scene in which Paul becomes aware of his feelings for Lady Enid Ferrin:
‘He felt that, in a way, he was seeing clearly something that had hitherto been nebulous and befogged. What if the jaundiced eyes of Bernard Ferring had seen deeper into his soul than he had himself? What if the baronet was not so mad after all? Paul Travers was for the first time placing his emotions upon the dissecting table, for the first time viewing things in what was perhaps their true perspective. Had he not, during those visits to Furze Acre, been growing fond of Enid Ferrin almost without his being aware of it?’
This comes across as conventional and trite reading fodder, with more than the odd twinge of sensation fiction in its style. This is another reason why this book feels older than it is.
The feared of showdown between Bernard and Paul finally happens in the traditional manner, with Paul storming out of the house, having taken Bernard’s gun away from him. An action which you know is going to come back to haunt him shortly. In the morning Bernard is discovered dead outside, but only after the servant is unable to get into his bedroom. It is locked from the inside, the bedroom window is fastened similarly, there is a torn letter in the bin and last night’s supper tray is present. However, none of these details are remotely important other than the letter. The locked room is completely forgotten about.
The bulk of the investigation is concerned with Paul Travers, who makes life so much harder for himself, as he manages to incriminate himself accidently as well as intentionally and everyone’s attempts to make him look less suspicious only have the opposite effect. Naturally he refuses to account for all his time on the fateful evening because he is protecting Lady Ferrin. This is rather old hat even by the standards of 1929 and in my notes, I wrote: “chivalric twaddle”. Harvey Brent despite his professional background holds back information from the police, even though it is not damning of Paul. His reason for doing this is: “It’s no good confusing the issues before the inquest. I’m doing what I’ve told Simmons to do, lying quiet and saying no more than I’ve got to say.” Cue the first of many eye rolls…
The eye rolling mostly occurs around Enid, who is deemed too ill to be questioned at the inquest (she isn’t) and she makes irritating remarks such as: “I’m dreading it, Mr Brent. Think of all the things that they will drag out of poor little me.” Her solution, to avoid being summoned to the resumed inquest, is to disappear for the day. Naturally being young, beautiful, and well-to-do, she doesn’t suffer any bad consequences for doing this. You really can’t blame the police for arresting Paul, given what goes on, even though you know it won’t be him. It is not that sort of story.
Yet there are no other possible suspects, and the cast of characters is surprisingly small. There is not much of a case for the reader to solve as there is only one sensible solution and that one is too well known for the length of the book. My edition has big font, but it is still 320 pages. Whitelaw really needed more than one possible suspect, as the majority of the book is filled with horrendously annoying narrative delaying tactics and his writing style is not one you love to spend time with for its own sake.
So, if you haven’t heard of Whitelaw before today, I think you can probably not worry too much about this gap in your reading!
Rating: 3/5