Super Sleuths

After a little reading binge over the last few days I managed to finish another one. It's one filled with detective stories. Detectives are one of my favourite genres. I like being led by the hand (or up the garden path) by the author and taken through the circumstances of the case at hand, discovering things as you read on and then try to make sense of the clues. Often I fail in this attempt but it in no way takes the fun away from reading the book.
I like finding out about the different detectives as well. All of them have their own style in investigating a case. Each of them has a personality they take into a case and shows in the way they investigate a case. Most of them have their own set of issues to overcome; Rebus is insubordinate to his bosses and drinks, Scarpetta is constantly trying to figure out her relationship with Benton, Holmes is a loner and a genius yet keeps Watson around for company and never finds happiness in a relationship with any woman. All detectives live in their own worlds and have their own sets of characters around them. In a way the idea of writing a detective novel seems very formulaic - something has happened and someone has to go and find out the who-when-where-why-what, yet each is in its own way unique and worth the read.


#### SPOILER ALERT ####


The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes - Edited by Hugh Greene
First of, when I read the little intro on the author/editor I discovered that the editor of this book is actually the brother of Graham Greene - the guy who wrote the last book I read! The world is a small place at times.

The title of this one intrigued me when I bought it and I wondered if there really were any rivals of Sherlock Holmes out there as the title suggests. From the stories in this one it seems that Conan Doyle has some competition but for me he is still one of the best out there and some authors in this volume need to sit up and take notes. There are 13 stories in this book, some of them by the same author and I will go through them one by one.

The Ripening Rubies - Max Pemberton
In this tale we have someone at a party who is taken aside by the organiser of the party and is told that she is missing some jewels, as are many of her friends. The guy then observes a lady hiding some jewels in her clothes and from that deduces who he should go after.
I did not like this one very much. I never really got a good idea of who the guy was doing the"investigating". He seems to have a profession apart from investigating this jewel crime. He has some friends in the police force and they come to his rescue in the final confrontation but the whole things seems a bit flat to me. I did not get involved with the characters as they are not very developed or interesting.

The Case of Laker, Absconded - Arthur Morrison
A young lad working for a bank disappear and seems to have absconded with a lot of cash. The detective advisor Hewitt is called in to have a look at the circumstances in the case and does a bit of legwork, apparently there is something really important about a umbrella. He finds a bit of an advert from a newspaper and after that is seems to be all plain sailing.
There is a slight distraction when we find out that both the fiancee and mother of the lad Laker seem to be following the police and Hewitt around but they are up to no harm and just want to keep themselves up to date on what is going on in the investigation. In the end it seems that Laker was tricked into going in a building that had been set up as a decoy by the bad guys and they then separated him from his money. Laker had been held captive for several days but they had let a few clues that were enough to get Hewitt hot on their trail.

The Duchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds - Guy Boothby
This one was a new one on me. A "detective" who is more out for himself than out to help his fellow man and/or solve a crime. Simon Carne/Klimo has a nice little set up going. As Simon he is a well know socialite and gets invited to parties and hang out with the rich and famous, nicking their jewelry. As Klimo he is the detective that finds the jewelry that he has nicked off them as Simon Carne. What a nice set up that is.
There is a rich lady that has some jewels that Carne would like and he devises a way to do so. there is a slightly interesting bit where he goes through a whole process of making a jewelry box with a mechanism that drops down the sides of the box and makes it look as if the jewels are gone when they are not but for me it cannot really save the story.
First of Carne/Klimo is not really a detective and he certainly not a rival of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was never a criminal, he could have been with his brain but he decided to stay on the right side of the law and help people recover what they had lost. Holmes was never out for personal gain just personal satisfaction.

The Affair of the "Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Co., Ltd" - Arthur Morrison
A story about bicycles which were at one time apparently a big booming business. One company gets Dorrington & Hicks to investigate some vague issue about a patent but the main story is more about how Dorrington then tries to get rich off the booming bicycle business. And we find out that he is not afraid to blackmail and injure people in the process. Dorrington is not really a detective, he does not go around staking out houses and/or tracing clues. he rides the waves of events and uses opportunism to get himself some more money than he was initially to be paid. He almost gets him comeuppance in the end, and I was almost grateful that he did. But he manges to get clear of the law and end up with a nice sum of money in the bank and not a blemish on his reputation. To me he is more of a rogue than a detective to be respected.
The story is too long winded and the characters are not well developed or that interesting. I found myself more amazed that the editor would think this another rival for Conan Doyle's Holmes than actually interested in the story or characters.

The Assyrian Rejuvenator - Clifford Ashdown
Then we have mr Romney Pringle. He just happens to be sitting in a restaurant and picks up a letter someone else drops. it is about a tonic that did not do what it was supposed to do. Pringle ends up getting himself access to the sellers offices and starts sending out orders himself and pocketing the money for it. Hardly any investigation has been done and nowhere do I really get the idea that he is supposed to be an investigator. To me Pringle is an opportunist who sees a way to make some money and is just good at tricking people. I cannot say that I like him or the story that much.

Madame Sara - LT Meade and Robert Eustace
Now we get Dixon Bruce. He meets an old friend who has recently married and his pretty wife and her sister are due a big inheritance if they can only find a long lost brother. Bruce gets involved in the search but to no avail at first. They do run into a mysterious lady who is a beautifier and becomes friend of them all. But..... all is not well. All of a sudden the sister dies and there are fears that the wife of Bruce's friend might be next. The strange thing about this one is that it is not really Bruce doing much of the investigating. It seems to be more the police surgeon Dr Vandeleur who figures out what is going on and who is after who, yet he remains mainly out of the story and on the sideline of events. It's kind of strange as he does seem to know what he is doing and able to get the bad guys but he is hardly involved in the tale. Shame really.

The Submarine Boat - Clifford Ashdown
Here we find mr Pringle again. This time he overhears a conversation about someone potentially selling some submarine plans to "the enemy". He then seems to want to foil this plan but not without trying to get some money out of it himself. The bad guys do turn the tables on him for a while by seeing through his disguises and following him wherever he goes, making it difficult for him to set his own plans in action. Pringle does not end up with the plans, but he does end up with the money and he seems to be perfectly happy with that.
Again, do not care for Pringle, do not get his morals , do not see him as a detective, did not really like the story that much and the set up of it is too similar to the other one in this edition.

The Secret of the Fox Hunter - William Le Queux
Lost of carry on in the diplomatic world, spies galore and some story about a document that is lost and will threaten the peace between two great nations. A lady dies on a hunting trip and no-one really knows why. We don't find out until the end how she was connected to the story and what her role was. Even though it is a bit of a long spun one, in essence the characters are okay and the story is entertaining enough with a little twist at the end. Although it a bit convenient that at the end of the story Le Queux brings in a new character to fill in the gaps and who just happens to be related to one of the main players.

The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway - Baroness Orczy
A woman is told a story about a murder and when you get a little clue from the final moments before the unfortunate lady's death you instantly know who killed her. At least, I figured it out. The whole ting then goes on for another few pages until the people in story are caught up as well and the whole thing is rounded up and he truth is forced out of the unfortunate criminal.
It makes it less interesting to me if I can reason out who did it that early on... and then turn out not to be wrong. There are a fair few characters in the story but none of them really engage you as the story is told to someone and you do not feel that connected to it.

The Moabite Cipher - R Austin Freeman
Arrogant detective Thorndyke deciphers a document and lords it over the other characters involved in finding out what is going on.
Someone is killed and he is the one carrying a document written in code. Thorndyke is then lured out of his house by some story about a person being poisoned. They almost get sidelined but outwit the bad guys and get even. Turns out that the note was about some loot that was hidden somewhere. Not sure what the main event was supposed to be in this tale as there seem to be some distractions on the way to the resolution of the story. So, even though the crimes are solved I did not really get a kick out of it. Thorndyke is a bit too arrogant and the story has a bulk deal on one dimensional characters - arrogant, super clever detective, copper - left in the dark, assistant - left running after the facts, criminals - super dastardly.

The Woman in the Big Hat - Baroness Orczy
Lady Molly does the legwork in this one. She gets involved in the case of a Mr Culloden who is killed having a nice civilised cup of tea with a lady with a big hat. Again, you know who has done it when you get to the description of the murder and then it is just watching the author pull it together. There is a nice little decoy suspect set up but the truth comes out. Lady Molly is not really fleshed out as a character and I was a bit put off by the very.... very dedicated assistant... slightly creepy. It would not surprise me if the next story in the Lady Molly saga is about the assistant murdering someone who dared to contradict Lady Molly.
It's a shame that this second story makes it look like the Baroness' stories are all sort of the same concept. The idea is the same in both stories - a murder takes place, the killer walks away from the scene saying something that in the end betrays them and then someone narrates the story of what happened. I think Conan Doyle's reputation is safe for now.

The Horse of the Invisible - William Hope Hodgson
Carnacki tells a ghostly detective story. I have to say that I know this character already and I like him. Carnacki seems to want to make sense of the mysteries he investigates and tries to not let the supernatural run away with. Whatever he investigates he looks for "normal" physical explanations for strange goings on he encounters but is willing to consider the supernatural as well.
Here we have a curse placed on girls in a family - they are doomed not to make it to their wedding days, not are their intended partners. There is a group of people in a house getting together and trying to work out what is going on with these noise of a horse running around the grounds. Cue electric pentagrams, some sleepless nights, swooning and the obligatory final reveal scene. The mystery ends up being a case of jealous relatives and a possible real haunting. Nice little story and told in a good style by both Carnacki and Hodgson.

The Game Played in the Dark - Ernest Bramah
For a change a blind detective, mr Carrados takes the lead in this one.
A criminal tries to stay one step ahead of the police and there are some rare coins that go missing as well. Then a mysterious lady calls to see Carrados and he ends up leaving with her and lands himself in a bit of trouble. The way he gets out of the sticky situation that arises is the real gem of this story! Carrados shows that his blindness is certainly not a handicap to him and uses it against the bad guys very cleverly. The story has a good pace and the characters are nice and interesting (although we do have the able assistant and the one step behind the detective copper). Actually would not mind reading another one of these.


All in all I think I can say that Conan Doyle does not need to worry about too many of the authors in this volume of collected tales. Some of the detectives portrayed are not even detectives. I find it slightly off putting that some of these guys are just blatently out for personal gain or even downright criminals themselves. I do not understand how Greene sees them as rivals for the skills and finesse of Holmes or how he see the authors as serious competitors of Conan Doyle. Many of the detectives are not well developed, or well rounded, some I don't even like at all. itis true that Conan Doylehad the chance to build up a character by serialising the Holmes stories but I think that evenin his first outing Holmes was a much stronger and multi dimensional character than most of the detectives portrayed in the mojarity of stories here. However, it was nice to read the different stories and meet some different detectives but my money is on Holmes for being remembered by generations to come.


Title: The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Hugh Greene (ed.)
330 pages
Penguin Books
ISBN nr 0 14 00 3311 4

Books to be read: 73