Where scandal is as rare as a unicorn
Three Crime Classics from Bude, Carnac and White
For the last 10 years, British Library Publishing have been doing the world a great service by reprinting titles in their Crime Classics series, which now has over 120 entries. I have a long-term goal of eventually reading them all — I’m currently at more than 50%, but they do keep publishing one a month, so we’ll see if I ever get to the finish line.
This year has been a very good year for the series so far. Here are my thoughts on the first three reprints from 2024:
Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White (1932)
Impact of Evidence by Carol Carnac (1954)
A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude (1956)
Fear Stalks the Village — Ethel Lina White (1932)
Ethel Lina White is my favourite Welsh novelist, hailing from Abergavenny, where there is a blue plaque at her former home (now a barber shop). Her Welsh upbringing gave her a lifelong fear of being buried alive, leading her to write in her will: "I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death."
Fear Stalks the Village was Ethel Lina White’s second proper crime novel, after Put Out the Light (1931). It provides an early example of a “poison pen” mystery, a theme later explored by Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Edmund Crispin, and many others.1 As with all the best poison pen mysteries, it’s set in a picturesque village where “the social tone was fragrant as rosemary, and scandal nearly as rare as a unicorn.” Sadly, the sequel Unicorn Stalks the Village was never published.
The local inhabitants — including a Lady, a Squire, a parson, a doctor, and a dog called Charles Dickens — are disturbed by the appearance of anonymous letters, followed by a tragic death. The mystery is eventually solved by the parson’s mate Ignatius Brown, who “rather fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes.”
This was an interesting mystery, capturing effectively the impact of literary poison on a small village community. The focus, in fact, is more on the sending of the letters themselves than the deaths. It’s the kind of plot that suits Ethel Lina White’s writing very well — a slowly-developing situation, where trust disintegrates as fear mounts.
Overall, it’s not as suspenseful as some of her novels. The following year saw the appearance of Some Must Watch, where White does a much better job of maintaining a claustrophobic atmosphere of tension. In the case of Fear Stalks the Village, I wonder if the introduction of an amateur detective was a mistake, as it defuses some of that tension. But it is still a very very good read, and I’m glad to see it being reprinted.
Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
Fear Stalks the Village has also been reviewed by Crossexamining Crime, The Invisible Event, Past Offences, and Dead Yesterday. You can buy it from the British Library or your local bookshop.
Impact of Evidence — Carol Carnac (1954)
Carol Carnac will be very familiar to readers of the British Library series, especially under her more common pen-name E. C. R. Lorac. Impact of Evidence was a birthday gift back in March, and as a resident of Wales, I was very excited to see it was set in the (fictional) Welsh border community of St Brynney’s. I was, however, a bit disappointed when I started reading, and discovered from the introduction that St Brynney’s was likely not inspired by any actual Welsh places, but by somewhere in Lancashire — namely Carnac’s home of Aughton.2
The story begins with a car crash, where a mysterious extra body is found in one of the cars, dead. Alongside the murder, there’s a lot of talk about the weather: the community has been largely cut off as a result of several days of snow, which then thaws, leading to severe flooding. That provides some extra hassle the characters could do without.
One of Carnac’s/Lorac’s strengths as a writer is creating atmosphere, and this is a wonderfully atmospheric mystery. Carnac brilliantly captures both the realities of life in an isolated farming community, and the challenges of navigating the hostile weather conditions. It’s not difficult to turn her text into a mental image of St Brynney’s and its inconvenient weather/murder combo.
The puzzle at the heart of the book is very good too, with a few key perplexing facts surrounding the original car crash. It’s one of those books where you’ll probably end up (like me) kicking yourself for not spotting some of the very clear pointers to the murderer’s identity. The main weakness of this book is that Julian Rivers of Scotland Yard is one of the least memorable detectives in crime fiction. Substitute a more charismatic sleuth, and this could be a 5-star read.
Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
Impact of Evidence has also been reviewed by Crossexamining Crime, the Puzzle Doctor, FrimleyBlogger and Northern Reader. You can buy it from the British Library or your local bookshop.
A Telegram from Le Touquet — John Bude (1956)
John Bude was one of the first authors to be reprinted in the Crime Classics series back in 2014, and this is the 8th of his titles to be included. Bude also wrote other fiction under his real name Ernest Elmore, and I hope one day there will be a British Library Children’s Classics series to reissue his 1946 book The Tail of the Snuffly Snorty Dog:
A Telegram from Le Touquet is a tail of two parts. It begins with Nigel Derry arriving at his godmother Gwenny’s country house, where a number of other people are also staying. There are a few sources of tension between the guests, leading eventually to a knife attack. But this isn’t a typical country house murder — the dead body doesn’t turn up until Part 2, when the narrative switches to Gwenny’s villa in southern France. There’s a confusing trail of clues for the Sûreté Nationale to follow, at the heart of which is the telegram from Le Touquet.3
The shift in location also marks a shift in narrator: part 1 is narrated in the first person by Nigel Derry, whereas part 2 is recounted in the third person. I can see why Bude made this decision, but it’s a shame that Nigel Derry’s voice doesn’t reappear later on, because I really enjoyed his narration. I don’t always have the patience to wait 79 pages for the first mention of murder, but in this case, I was very engaged in Nigel’s introduction to the characters and their interactions.
In part 2, much of the narration revolves around Inspector Blampignon, who previously appeared in Death on the Riviera (1952). I am fond of Blampignon, and agree with Julian Symons, whose contemporary review described him as "one of the many characterisations which make this book a delight to read.” The mystery is also strong, although Bude does hide a bit too much from the reader to make it entirely satisfying. Despite these shortcomings, this is still a very good read, and I hope we’ll see some more of John Bude soon.
Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)
A Telegram from Le Touquet has also been reviewed by Crossexamining Crime, the Puzzle Doctor, Frimleyblogger and The Book Decoder. You can buy it from the British Library or your local bookshop.
Curtis Evans suggests it may have been the first poison pen mystery novel, in his fascinating article on real-life “epistolary assaults” at CrimeReads: https://crimereads.com/poison-pen-letter/.
A recent property listing for her home commented: “The fairytale-esque setting is further enhanced by… stunning views of Caton Fell, Abbeystead & River Lune, offering a slice of paradise right at your doorstep.” Sadly, I was not able to meet the minimum offer of £750k.
At the time this book was written, Paramount Holidays were offering 7-day holidays to Le Touquet, by air, for only 22 guineas. Telephone Fulham 2311 to book.