Martin Fone's Blog, page 110

Looe Original Dry Gin

In the south-east of Cornwall, some seven miles of Liskeard, is to be found the coastal town and resort of Looe. Its intriguing name comes from the Cornish word Logh which means a deep water inlet. The River Looe dissects the town into West and East Looe, connected by a bridge. As well as a sandy beach it boasts a small harbour and a quayside. One of the more recent occupants of the attractive properties along the quayside is Copperfish Distillery, the distillers of a range of gins including Looe Original Dry Gin.

The brainchild of Andy Walton, the distillery began operations in 2018 producing moonshine. With aspirations to distil a range of spirits including whisky, rum, and gin, he decided he needed to buy a still, something that proved easier said than done. However, teaming up with consultants, Ryebeck, Walton obtained the necessary finance and settled for a still with a capacity of five hundred litres, which had to customised to fit a building with low ceilings. It has three columns rather than the usual two and twelve bubble cups.

The still was installed and commissioned in late 2019 and a week later, just before Christmas, Looe Gin was launched, the first of an extensive and growing range of gins that the distillery produces as it surfs the ginaissance. As the strap line on the rear of the bottle says, it is “made on the quay by the sea”. As distillers they make a point of sourcing all their ingredients locally, wherever possible, both to reduce their carbon footprint and support the local economy. All their spirits are made from scratch and, reassuringly, they sample and test all their drinks to ensure that the drinker will have a product at its best.

Although appearances are not everything, with a consumable product which commands a premium price and with so many options to choose from, it is essential that the consumer’s attention is grabbed. Some distillers seem to forget this aspect or take a rather po-faced approach to packaging their product. Copperfish, though, have taken this essential ingredient of a brand’s success on in (buckets and) spades. There is a distinctly seaside, saucy postcode-feel to the branding, a bold colourful picture of a mermaid adopting a model’s pose in front of Looe beach. The illustration may be a little passe and, perhaps, a tad controversial in these politically correct days of sexual equality, but it certainly makes an impression.

The bottle itself is made of clear glass, cylindrical in shape with a narrow shoulder and neck leading to a silver screwcap. The label at the rear, pale yellow background with gold, light blue, and black lettering, tells me that the “fine gin is made from grain spirit and a carefully selected recipe of botanicals” and that my bottle is number 52 from batch 16. A little detective work reveals that among the botanicals that make up the spirit are juniper, coriander seed, orange peel, cinnamon bark, lemon peel, angelica root, and orris bark. It is a firmly traditional set of botanicals that puts it firmly in the London Dry Gin camp.

On the nose it provides a welcome hit of juniper with citric elements mellowing the impact. In the glass, this spirit with an ABV of 40% packs a powerful punch of juniper and orange and the other botanicals provide a long dry finish. It reminded me of a louder, brasher, more traditional relative of Tarquin’s Cornish Gin and there is nothing wrong with that.   

Until the next time, cheers!

The Case Of The Tudor Queen

A review of The Case of the Tudor Queen by Christopher Bush

This is another murder mystery story with a distinct touch of theatricality about it, one in which Christopher Bush excels himself in setting up a fiendishly difficult problem which takes all the ingenuity and brain power of his go-to amateur sleuth, Ludovic Travers, to resolve. First published in 1938 and now reissued by Dean Street Press, it is the eighteenth in the series and even the most ardent of Bush aficionados would be hard pressed to make a convincing case that it is one of the best.

The story opens promisingly enough. While driving in the countryside, Travers, accompanied by his manservant, Palmer, and, fortuitously, Superintendent George Wharton of the Yard, they come across a young woman in a bit of a state. She turns out to be the servant of Mary Legreye, the actress, and has returned to her cottage to discover that her mistress has left in a hurry, leaving her immediate personal effects behind. Intrigued, Travers and Wharton go up to the actress’ London house and make a horrifying discovery.

The body of Legreye’s servant, Ward, is found in the kitchen, clutching a glass, obviously poisoned. Upstairs, there is a more dramatic and graphic discovery. The body of Mary Legreye is found in a pose which reprises her greatest dramatic role, that of a Tudor queen, again seemingly poisoned. Were these double suicides or had Ward killed Legreye and then done away with himself? Or were these the acts of a third party or parties and, if so, who? Wharton and Travers in their inestimable fashion seek to resolve the conundrum.

One of the principal problems with the book lies in the sheer complexity of the plot. The investigators decide that the only way to establish what went on in the house is to interrogate each of Legreye’s associates and reconstruct their movements around the relevant times. In other words, it becomes a tale of alibi-busting, which can be tedious in the extreme, especially, as in this case, each lead seems to come to a crashing dead end. By about the two-third mark of the book, the investigation has come to a halt, both Wharton and Travers resigning to the awful truth that this is a case that has beaten even their collective resources.

Miraculously, though, some weeks later Travers has a brainwave and decides to follow up something that did not quite sit right in his mind. He digs around a bit, motors up and down the country asking questions, obtaining clues here and there until he is able to piece together a theory convincing enough to blow a hole in one person’s alibi and solve the mystery of the deaths which are now to be incontrovertibly regarded as murders. The conclusion, although resolving the case satisfactorily, is introduced a little too abruptly for my liking and is not one that is easily anticipated.

The murder plot is so deviously complicated that it needs a deus ex machina-like plot device to bring it to a conclusion which can upset the balance and pace of the book. Often this is the price to be paid when the complexity of the murder plot takes precedence over the artistic whole of the book. It might have been a more satisfying read had Bush inverted it, writing it from the murderer’s perspective and showing how they had defeated the brains of Travers and Wharton. However, that would not have sat well in a series where Travers’ genius shines bright.

I was disappointed by the book, but that it is not to say that it is a bad one. Bush has collected some interesting characters with some fascinating images, not least that of Mary Legreye in all her glory sitting, dead, on her throne. However, Bush is capable of better.

Death And The Dancing Footman

A review of Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh

Say what you want about Ngaio Marsh, but she does come up with some inventive ways to kill someone and some images that will linger long in the memory even when the details of her story have faded away. In Death and the Dancing Footman, originally published in 1941 and the eleventh in her Inspector Alleyn series, the murder victim, William Compline, is killed by a Māori mere, a short, broad-bladed weapon shaped like a teardrop and made from jade. The image, though, that will be forever in my mind is that of the footman who cannot resist going through the requisite movements to the popular dance tune “Boomps-a-daisy” he hears playing on the wireless when he is in the corridor. His embarrassing terpsichorean display is important as it frames the time when the murderer could have been moving between rooms to dispatch their victim.

There is a very distinct air of theatricality about this book, with the country weekend house party – yes, another one – carefully staged by Jonathan Royal to bring seven guests together who have mutual antagonisms. Royal tells his eight guest, Aubrey Mandrake, who we discover has his own footling secret to hide, that he is engaging in an experiment, with Mandrake as the audience, to see how people who loathe others in the group behave over a prolonged period. What possibly could go wrong?

Marsh takes much care in setting the scene and giving us enough details about the characters of the guests and their backstories to appreciate the underlying tensions and anticipate what might happen. Just to add extra frisson to the occasion, Marsh relies on two old detective fiction favourites, a heavy snow storm that forces the guests to stay put, and damage to telephone lines. The drama plays out not quite in the way that the host anticipates and, interestingly, not as the guests themselves imagine, as they spend some time earlier in the tale anticipating how each other would react in a crisis. Their predictions prove completely erroneous.

The principal focus of the antagonism is Nicholas Compline, a womaniser and his mother’s favourite, who was once engaged to Miss Wynne, another guest and now his brother’s fiancée, and is wooing Madame Lisse, to whom another guest, the Austrian plastic surgeon Doctor Hart, is attached. William, his brother, is devoted to his mother, but his love Is not returned, and the two clash.

Nicholas is challenged by William to take an icy plunge. As most of the guests congregate to watch the challenge, Mandrake is pushed into the icy pool. He was wearing the same cloak as Nicholas, who rescues him. Was it a case of mistaken identity? Later, Nicholas is injured by a brass Buddha, a booby trap set above his bedroom door. The finger of suspicion is pointed at Hart who is put under virtual house arrest.

Just as the reader feels comfortable enough to anticipate where matters are going, there is the murder, and the victim is not Nicholas. As luck would have it, Alleyn is in the area and as soon as conditions allow it, he hotfoots it down to Highfield Manor to conduct investigations single-handedly. His usual partner in crime, Fox, is not able to join until the end and so, for better or worse, their characteristic banter and repartee is missing from the story. Apart from the footman’s antics, a drawing pin, a fishing fly and a bit of fishing line help Alleyn solve the puzzle.

This aspect of the story is rather rushed, compared to the languid pace of the initial set up, and while the circumstances in which the murder was committed shows ingenuity, it does seem a little far-fetched. That said, I found this one of Marsh’s more easily accessible books and an enjoyable yarn, made even more entertaining by the quality of her writing and characterisation.  

Twitter Handle Of The Week

Pity poor Liz Trussell. Her Twitter handle is @Liztruss and for some reason politicians, newshounds and other unsavoury characters seem to mistake her for the new British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who, as social media was another thing she discovered late in the day, has had to make do with @trussliz.

Still, it has boosted her followers and Trussell does seem to have a sense of humour. On September 7th she tweeted “Grabbed lunch at IKEA today, picked up a new cabinet”. However, things are likely to get worse for her, at least in the short term, if the experiences of John Lewis are anything to go by.

Lewis whose Twitter handle is @JohnLewis and whose profile says he is a “Computer science educator, father of four, social liberal, atheist, and not a retail store”, receives upwards of 50,000 tweets a year from people trying to contact the British retail store, John Lewis, whose handle is @JohnLewisRetail.

Life was so much simpler when we made phone calls and wrote letters.

The Snaking Queue

If there is one thing the British are good at, it is queuing or, as the Americans prosaically describe it, standing in line. We grin and bear it, showing a stiff upper lip, a physiognomic combination that, I find, is difficult to pull off with any degree of aplomb.

Our continental brethren are made of sterner stuff and hanging on in quiet desperation, to paraphrase Pink Floyd, is not their way. In the early part of the 20th century, mathematicians and statisticians began to consider the dynamics and component factors of a queue in a formalised way.

The forefather of a branch of mathematics known nowadays as queuing theory was a Dane, Agner Krarup Erlang, who published a paper in 1909 in which he considered the optimal configuration for the Copenhagen Telephone Exchange to reduce waiting times and improve connectivity. It is tempting to think at the time not many operators were needed, given the number of telephone users at the time, but you have to start somewhere. He went on to develop the Erlang theory of efficient networks and the science of telephone network analysis.

Others, principally Kendall and Little, developed upon and refined Erlang’s work and there are, for the non-mathematician, mind-bogglingly fiendish algebraic formulae designed to assist service providers configure an optimally efficient queuing system. When it is all boiled down, though, the key components are when the customer enters the queue and the interval between each arrival, the time it takes for the customer to be serviced, the number of operators, the capacity of the queuing system, and whether the first in are to be served first or to use another form of service provision.

It goes without saying that the analysis is heavily biased towards the service provider rather than the person queuing. No queue may mean that the provider has overcapacity resulting in a waste of resources which, of course, equates to money. Overly long queues mean that there are not enough operators. Queuing theory attempts to find the ideal balance between resourcing the service and the time a customer can tolerate standing in a queue. Queuing theory makes queues an inevitability.

I always thought that the single “snake” line weaving its way to a few service counters was just a nifty way of confining as many people in as small a place as possible, what the police call kettling, and freeing up floor space. For sure, it is intended to do this but its advocates also claim that the process provides two principal benefits to the people in the queue.

It imbues a degree of equity into the process as there is only one queue to join. You just shuffle along until you get to the front. When presented with a choice of queues to join, how many times have you got that sinking feeling that by some innate ability you have managed to select the one that seems to be moving more slowly than any of the others? This source of frustration is eliminated.

Psychologically, so proponents claim, people feel much better if they are on the move than if they are just hanging around. A “snake” line is more likely to keep you on the move as it is feeding several service counters. I find the back of someone’s head only holds my attention for a few seconds at most but as you are snaking along you can at least engage in conversation with the people going the opposite way on the other side of the barrier. Sure, the conversation wouldn’t rival the Socratic dialogues for its perspicacity but there is some comfort to be gained in a mutual moan as to the length of time the process is taking or speculating whether there will be enough time to hit the duty-free shops.

Enthusiastic queue managers see the “snake” line as an opportunity to sell additional product. That’s why in supermarkets and other retail units the human serpent is routed through shelves of unlikely products that you would have given nary a glance to normally, but which become strangely enticing after prolonged contemplation.

They also like to keep you informed to manage your expectations. Notices like “abandon all hope ye who enter here” or the like greet you at the entrance of the “snake” and at varying intervals you will encounter “just thirty minutes to go” or “nearly there”. I treat them as the antithesis of the signs you see on the motorways telling you how long it will take you to get to the next junction. That is a challenge to be beaten. In a queue, I am grateful if I overshoot by less than 50%.

Serpentine queues, I’m afraid, are here to stay and for that you can blame Agner Krarup Erlang and the Copenhagen Telephone Exchange.

Jellyfish Of The Week

Does a jellyfish hold the key to immortality? This is intriguing prospect revealed by some research carried out by a team from the university of Oviedo in Spain and reported in the ever-popular Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Turritopsis dohrnii, a small type of jellyfish no bigger than a finger nail and dubbed the Immortal Jellyfish, starts off life like any other jellyfish, a free-floating larva. It attaches itself to a hard surface and matures into a plant-like polyp. From there several young jellyfish bud off to become medusae or adults.

When it is stressed or damaged, an adult Immortal will, instead of dying, absorb its own tentacles and becomes a blob that settles on the sea floor. Over the next day and a half, the blob becomes a new polyp which then produces more medusae. However, it does not prevent the jellyfish from dying if it is gobbled up by a predator.

Scientists have now identified the DNA part that allows the jellyfish to change from adulthood to a juvenile state at will and, intriguingly, it is similar to that of humans, holding out the intriguing prospect that one day we too could reverse the effects of ageing.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss, methinks.

A Case For Solomon

A review of A Case for Solomon by Bruce Graeme

When Bruce Graeme’s A Case for Solomon, originally published in 1943 and now reissued by the enterprising Moonstone Press, came to the top of my TBR pile, such was the disappointment that I had felt over his previous novel, House With Crooked Walls, I was tempted to put it to one side. However, Armchairreviewer, who had reacted to my review of despair, encouraged me to continue with Graeme, promising me that his third in his Theodore Terhune series was the best. So with a deep intake of breath, similar to one I take when I pick up a Gladys Mitchell or jump into an icy tarn, I plunged into it.  

She was not wrong. It came from left field, twisted the inverted crime mystery genre until its pips squeaked, and provided an ingenious plot with a clever and, ultimately, satisfying resolution. One of (the many) strong arguments against capital punishment is that once the murderer has committed one, and therefore likely to dance the hemp jig, there is little or no disincentive to strike again. At least in detective fiction of the so-called Golden Age, once the culprit has crossed the Rubicon of murder, they seem to go on a spree.

Graeme takes this theme and turns it on its head. The central conceit is can someone, in this case Charles Cockburn, murder the same individual, the odious Frank Smallwood, some 19 years apart and, having stood trial and found guilty for the first, although not hung, can he be tried for the same crime again? It is an intriguing dilemma and calls for the judgment of Solomon.

The book falls into four parts. The opening section is a traditional detective story. Bookseller and amateur sleuth, Terhune, with a penchant for discovering (and solving) murders, is out for a walk in the woods with one of his girlfriends, Helena, when he finds a discarded copy of Swinburne’s Rosamond. Nearby, hidden under leaves, they find the body of a man who has obviously been murdered and has a curious jagged scar on a leg. It turns out (naturally) that Terhune had sold the book and that the owner (obviously) had put their initials on the title page.

The police, aided by Terhune, track down who had the book in their possession at the time olf the murder and identify the murdered man as Frank Smallwood. The only problem is that Smallwood had been murdered in 1927, part of the evidence being the severed leg bearing Smallwood’s distinctive scar. The second part of the book is occupied by a transcript of the first trial. It is more engaging than this bald description suggests and provides some valuable insights into the relationship between Cockburn and Smallwood.

Armed with this knowledge Terhune endeavours to solve the more recent murder, which takes up the third part of the book with the subsequent trial making up the fourth. A moot point is whether Cockburn can stand trial again on the same charge, the judge controversially ruling that the murders happened in different counties and, therefore, the charges were not identical. What happened on that fatal night when Cockburn unexpectedly encountered Smallwood in the woods becomes clear, as do the events that led to the supposed first murder.

Smallwood’s callous act of revenge met its just desserts, the justice meted out at the end is rough but neatly resolved and Patricia Webb, who failed to stand by her man the first time, finally does the right thing.

There is one curiosity about the book. It was published in 1943 but the action was set in 1946. The war is (clearly) over and England (clearly) was not under German occupation. Did Graeme have any special knowledge or was the general feeling at the time that the war would soon be over and that the Germans would be defeated? Another fascinating point in a book full of intrigue that is a joy to read.

I am glad I took Armchairreviewer’s advice and persevered with an author who clearly had recovered his mojo. Great stuff.

Mainbrace Cornish Dry Gin

One of my favourite things to do after a visit to the gardens at Glendurgan and Trebah near Mawnam Smith on the Helford estuary is to pop into The Ferry Boat Inn, sit outside with a pint of foaming ale and watch the little boats sail up and down and across the river. It was such a moment that inspired the birth of Mainbrace Distillery, specifically when Richard Haigh, a co-founder, saw a member of the winning crew of the gig race celebrate with a tot of rum. They decided to create a rum that would encapsulate a moment of triumph and friendship and came up with a rum that is beautifully golden in colour and blends two distinct and never-before bottled styles. Mainbrace Rum has made quite a splash in the rum market and has begun to accumulate awards.

Rum is not my tipple and so my interest in a thriving local Cornish distillery based on the Helford Passage was only piqued when I saw that they were planning to release a gin to celebrate the late Queen’s then forthcoming Platinum Jubilee, Mainbrace Cornish Dry Gin. It seems they do things differently in Cornwall. The normal backstory is that a distiller adds gins to the more time-extensive and capital-hungry process of distilling whisky to bring in some much-needed revenue or having established a distilling operation to catch the boom spawned by the ginaissance, they extend their range of spirits to include vodkas and rums. Here, though, Mainbrace have gone from rum to gin.

Fortunately, they have chosen to keep the eye-catching bottle design, which is elegant, functional, and simply a pleasure to own. It looks like a bell or, to keep a quasi-nautical theme, a lighthouse on a rock, with a rounded, tapering base which leads to a long neck, topped by fashionably thick lips, and a wooden stopper with a real cork. The stopper has a golden star on the top and “The Queen God Bless Her” running round it, sadly missing a comma or hyphen. The labelling is bold, making good use of navy blue, gold, and white lettering.

The name Mainbrace is apposite. It was a naval term given to a thick rope which was used to steady or brace the main mast. If it was cut in enemy action, the crew had to splice the rope back together to save the ship. If this was achieved successfully, the captain would reward the crew with a double ration of rum. The phrase “splicing the mainbrace” became synonymous with raising a toast to celebrate a special occasion and was accompanied with a toast to the health of the monarch.

To splice the mainbrace in honour of Her Majesty, the distillers have taken advantage of the natural abundance that Cornwall has to offer. Using natural Cornish water in the distillation process, the spirit, which has an ABV of 40%, is made in a copper pot still in which botanicals including juniper, orris, lemon peel, angelica root, lime peel, and lime leaf are infused along with lemon verbena harvested from St Michael’s Mount, and three local seaweeds, kelp, dulse, and sea spaghetti, sourced from the Cornish Seaweed Company in nearby Gweek.  

It is a distinctly modern twist on a classic London Dry Gin style, by which I mean that the juniper plays a secondary role. On the nose it has distinct and bold citric notes. In the glass, the citrus in the lemon and especially the lime really dominate, before allowing the umami-rich seaweeds to play above the earthier traditional gin elements. The sense that this is a spirit that has a nautical tradition is reinforced by the rather salty aftertaste.

I found it refreshing and enjoyable, although I would have liked the juniper to have been more pronounced. It is a gin worth having, if only for the beautiful bottle.

Until the next time, cheers!

A Deed Without A Name

A review of A Deed without a Name by Dorothy Bowers

The third of Dorothy Bowers’ five crime novels, originally published in 1940 and now reissued by Moonstone Press, takes its title from what the acting profession call Shakespeare’s Scottish play. In case you might have missed the Shakespearean reference, each of the chapters begins with a quote from the Bard, a testament to the author’s encyclopaedic knowledge of his works or the power of her concordance.

The dread deeds are a couple of murders, the first to be discovered that of amateur sleuth, Archy Mitford. When we first meet Archy, he has already survived three attempts on his life, once when a car drove straight at him, the second when he ate some chocolates which had been poisoned, and the third when someone tried to push him in front of a commuter train. After a school reunion he tells two of his chums, Tony Wynkerell and Philip Beltane, about his concerns about for his safety but refuses to contact the police.

What does he know that someone thinks is worth murdering him for and has it anything to do with the disappearance of a retired businessman, Sampson Vick, in whose fate Mitford has suddenly taken a keen interest? What lies behind his obsession for drawing a particular type of bird as a doodle?

Mitford changes his plans for the weekend and instead of accompanying his aunt to Essex he stays in London but visits his aunt’s deserted house where he writes some entries in his diary. Someone knocks at the door – clearly Mitford knows who he is – and the following day his body is found suspended from a rope. Although it looks like suicide, he sustained a blow to the head before being strung up. Inspector Pardoe, who is Bowers’ go-to detective for four of her five novels, leads the investigation, accompanied by Sergeant Salt.

Pardoe is a bit of a colourless character, competent, thorough, but lacking the sort of spark that warms the reader to more memorable fictional detectives. Where Bowers does score, though, is in her ability to create an atmosphere. The story is set at the outbreak of the Second World War, during the phoney war stage, but at a time when blackouts are enforced, adherence to which is a source of concern to some of the characters. A constant leitmotif is the difficulty it causes in getting around the metropolis, and a navigational error is both the source of Mitford’s key piece of information and his eventual undoing.

Bowers plays fair with her readers, and sprinkles enough clues in the text, although some may be hiding in the odd thicket or two and she delights in the occasional red herring, to work out who the culprit is. I was fairly convinced I was on the right track as soon as Mitford opened the door to his killer without having to search the inner recesses of what few grey cells I possess to (c)rake up an obscure country name for a bird I had spotted.

The discovery of a second body buried under the floor of the house that Mitford had mistakenly entered ties the Vick disappearance to the amateur sleuth’s murder, but for the purist the interchangeability of two brothers and the extensive use of extracts from a private diary are rather weak devices to bring the plot to a resolution.

An oddity, at least for this reader, is Speyer, Mitford’s German tutor. He is still at liberty even though war has been declared. It will only be a matter of time before he is interned.

This is a worthy book, entertaining enough in its own right, but one that fails to hit the heights of the classics of the genre.

Dictator’s Way

A review of Dictator’s Way by E R Punshon

One of the things I like about E R Punshon is that he wears his heart on his sleeve and is not content just to produce a cosy mystery puzzle in the heart of an idyllic English village. Instead, the brutal realities of the times in which he lived rear their ugly heads in his narrative and for the modern reader resonate with some of the disturbing trends nowadays.

Published in 1938 Dictator’s Way, the tenth in his Punshon’s Bobby Owen series and reissued by Dean Street Press, is set against the rise of Fascism in Europe, principally Hitler and Mussolini, and focuses on the activities of the agents and counteragents of the self-proclaimed Redeemer in the fictional state of Etruria, somewhere between Germany and Italy but, presumably, with a coastline that supports a navy. The title is slightly nuanced, referring to the name of a road, which a wealthy businessman has pedestrianised, and the way that dictators operate, a subtlety that is lost, naturally, in the American title of Death of a Tyrant.

As well as voicing his concerns about the rise of Fascism, Punshon explains why seemingly democratic countries are willing to deal with them – it is all about the money, as it is today – and also touches on the resentments that build up against those who are deemed to be privileged and the consequent fear of revolutionary uprisings. He also takes delight in poking fun at fashionable restaurants and the people who frequent them. There is much more to a Punshon novel than a mere murder mystery.

One of Punshon’s literary traits is the set piece and for those readers who look forward to them he does not disappoint with Bobby Owen engaging in fisticuffs with a former boxer, blundering in the dark by the coastline and being struck literally over the head and metaphorically by Cupid’s arrow. Yes, the seemingly ascetic, career-minded Bobby Owen has fallen in love. The only problem is that the object of his affections is one of his suspects, a strong-minded, determined woman, Olive Farrar. Those who have read some of Punshon’s later novels will know how this will end up.

With groups of spies, escapades on the coast and on the high seas, lists of collaborators, this is more of a thriller than a murder mystery, although ostensibly the police’s investigations are directed towards the murderer of a man whose body Owen, with his usual penchant for being at the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time, has discovered in a house on Dictator’s Way that is used for parties and gambling.

There are some wonderful characters, including the bruiser who, had Punshon the mind, could easily turn into a Lugg, and Punshon’s narrative is no-nonsense, sometimes amusing, and always concentrating on telling his tale in a way that intrigues and entertains the reader and drives them forward, anxious to know how all the pieces hang together.

My key takeaways from this book are always to be wary of someone, whom you played rugby against at University appearing out of the blue, and get rid of a leaking pen at the first opportunity. Despite not being a “normal” Punshon I thoroughly enjoyed a book which rose with aplomb above the normal one-dimensional fare of Golden Age detective fiction.