Where There Was Smoke
A review of Where There Was Smoke by Brian Flynn – 250729
Originally published in 1951, Where There Was Smoke is the third of five Brian Flynn novels reissued by Dean Street Press in July 2025. The thirty-eighth in Flynn’s long-running Anthony Bathurst series, it is more of a thriller than a conventional whodunit. Nevertheless, the amateur sleuth is still capable of the odd Holmesian feat of deduction and exhibits a spirit of derring-do that discomforts his old mukker, Andrew MacMorran of the Yard.
The story, divided into four parts, starts off with Donald Finney, a bright young chemist, who is tempted by an advert to visit the premises of Messrs Morgan and Trevor at 7, King Lud Street in London, lured by the prospect of the £100 offered by the firm’s Mr Reheboam for just one night’s work. Later, though, Finney’s body is discovered and, curiously, the skin is conspicuously discoloured and within the victim’s belly button is a piece of paper bearing the letters NST…IRE and a piece of cooked bacon rind.
At the local East Burne police station is an officer by the name of Noel Stire, but he steadfastly denies any knowledge of or association with the victim. Then a bright sergeant at Eppfield police station remembers another body being found in a similarly discoloured state, again of a chemist, some months earlier. Inspector Manning of the local police wisely recognizes that this is a case complex and baffling enough to require the big guns of the Yard. Enter Messrs MacMorran and Bathurst.
The investigation has a languid feel about it as the requisite information is gathered, requiring visits to a greasy spoon-like café, a factory with Bathurst disguised as an inspector, the whiff of pigs and Bathurst’s cruciverbalism enabling him to give a convincing explanation to the message found on Finney and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the scriptures, particularly the Book of Kings, giving him the link between Rehobaum and the Scorpion. There is an inventive use of alphabet spaghetti to convey a message and Bathurst is more than once the beneficiary of being in the right place at the right time or being in a position to overhear some important remark.
One such tells him something big is going to happen in three days’ time and the pace of the book picks up, spurring Bathurst into action as the clock ticks, leading to an incendiary finale. We find we have strayed into an international conspiracy to produce an infinite supply of a substitute for petrol, using a formula developed by a Moravian who had died before his work was completed. The process required the input of clever chemists, both of whom, when their contribution was complete, paid for their acquired knowledge with their lives, cooked in a device used by Customs and Excise to incinerate contraband tobacco.
The finale has a slightly inconclusive feel about it as Bathurst can only reconstruct what has happened without the benefit of cast-iron evidence. It might not be one of Flynn’s better stories but the joy for me lies in his use of language, his inventive use of idioms and variations of well known sayings. They stick out like an overgrown toenail, showing that he certainly knows his artichokes. Along the way we meet the Rajah of Bhong, the Young lady of Devizes and the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady with Sir Garnet making a welcome return and even the odd archaism like serpiginously creeps into the text.
A few hours in the company of Flynn and his amateur sleuth are never wasted and there are moments of delight to be found lurking in many of the pages. Great stuff.
My thanks to Victoria Eade for a review copy.
