The League Of Matthias
A review of The League of Matthias by Brian Flynn
Brian Flynn was especially busy in 1934…this is the first of three of his Anthony Bathurst novels that were published that year…the fourteenth in the series…now reissued by Dean Street Press…and once again he keeps his readers on their toes. This is as much a thriller as a piece of crime fiction…straying into the world of international gangs and a sprinkling of love interest…themes that Patricia Wentworth would go on to explore in more detail.
One of the unusual features of the book is its structure, the story told from three perspectives. The first voice we hear is that of Lance…the abbreviation of his first name is important as the reader will discover as the tale unfolds…a young man who is on holiday with a couple of friends. They enter a club…the Red Flare Club in Antwerp…where Lance is taken by a young dancer, Phillipa. To his surprise, she passes him a note telling him that she is in trouble and that he must help her. No true English gentleman could possibly resist such a plea.
They rush back to Phillipa’s gaff pretending to be a married couple…her dance partner, De Verviac, is in hot pursuit…there is a gun battle…someone is killed…Lance and Philippa make a dramatic escape out of the window courtesy of some knotted sheets…making a dramatic escape to England.
The narrative voice then switches to that of Anthony Bathurst. He takes the story back in time and relates part of Maturin’s story from another perspective. Bathurst too is in Antwerp…working with Scotland Yard, investigating the assassination of some British intelligence operatives. Bathurst is in the house where Philippa lodges…witnesses the gun battle…and reveals that the man shot dead was his colleague, Rawlinson.
The key to understanding what is going on lies with the identity of Maturin, precisely who De Verviac is and the shady League of Matthias, named after the thirteenth apostle…a gang of the worst sort of criminals who every six months draw lots to decide which two of their members should fight a duel to the death…the only rule being that no guns be involved. This section requires a different narrative point…Flynn content to provide the background and move the story on in the third person.
The admission of new members to fill the vacancies in the League…unsurprisingly they are not who they seem…and a drawing of lots which pits one of them against De Verviac hastens the mystery’s resolution. De Verviac is strangled by a tall woman wearing a red cloak in the grounds of Maturin’s father’s estate and then in a gun battle there is a further death which leads to a poignant, if a somewhat melodramatic, finale.
In truth, the story relies a little too much on coincidence, misdirection, and false identities to be entirely satisfying…and there is precious little in the way of overt detection…but it is a cracking story. The reader is swept along by this pacy telling of an improbable tale of evil and malice and it is a pleasure just to go with the flow.
Apart from the pace of his narrative, Flynn’s strength is his willingness to experiment with form and character. Bathurst is not a character set in stone…his persona shifts from book to book…more of an organising central character than a rounded figure that you get to know and whose foibles you appreciate…but he is none the worse for that. Flynn writes with an indefatigable sense of fun and infectious enthusiasm…one virus I am more than happy to dice with.
Thoroughly recommended.
