Bruce Beckham's Blog - Posts Tagged "golden-age"

The Slip-Carriage Mystery by Lynn Brock

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is certainly one of the more challenging Golden Age mysteries that I have come across. Published in 1928 and authored by Irish-born ‘Lynn Brock’ it is the fourth of seven Colonel Wyckham Gore novels. The protagonist sleuth is a partner in a London law firm.

On a foggy winter’s night, a prominent industrialist is found stabbed to death in his first-class compartment of a slip carriage in the siding of a provincial railway yard. A year later, the murder remaining unsolved, Gore is charged by the Government to investigate the crime. So far, so good.

The book comprises two distinct halves. In the first, Gore reads through reams of witness statements; in the second, he gains a position undercover at the late industrialist’s country estate. These might almost be two separate books, and I found the profusion of detail in each difficult to reconcile.

Moreover, in both content and style, the narrative is highly disjointed – and, frankly, I think I would need to read it at least once more to absorb and understand exactly what went on. When I finally reached the denouement, it could have been transplanted from another book, and I would have believed it.

Searching for plus points, like all Golden Age novels, it provides an accidental insight into the customs and mores of its time – and, indeed, on the latter aspect it perhaps surprises, in not shying away from shootings, poisonings, illicit affairs and drug dealing!




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