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Bogue's Fortune
To research a new detective story, Charles Applegate takes a post in a progressive school of misfits, set deep in the English countryside. The game turns serious when a fellow teacher is murdered and a weird variety of criminals seem convinced that Charles has something they want.
- GenresMystery
237 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Julian Symons
246 books70 followersJulian Gustave Symons is primarily remembered as a master of the art of crime writing. However, in his eighty-two years he produced an enormously varied body of work. Social and military history, biography and criticism were all subjects he touched upon with remarkable success, and he held a distinguished reputation in each field.
His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America - an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain's Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writer.
Symons held a number of positions prior to becoming a full-time writer including secretary to an engineering company and advertising copywriter and executive. It was after the end of World War II that he became a free-lance writer and book reviewer and from 1946 to 1956 he wrote a weekly column entitled "Life, People - and Books" for the Manchester Evening News. During the 1950s he was also a regular contributor to Tribune, a left-wing weekly, serving as its literary editor.
He founded and edited 'Twentieth Century Verse', an important little magazine that flourished from 1937 to 1939 and he introduced many young English poets to the public. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry entitled 'Confusions about X', 1939, and 'The Second Man', 1944.
He wrote hie first detective novel, 'The Immaterial Murder Case', long before it was first published in 1945 and this was followed in 1947 by a rare volume entitled 'A Man Called Jones' that features for the first time Inspector Bland, who also appeared in Bland Beginning.
These novles were followed by a whole host of detective novels and he has also written many short stories that were regularly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In additin there are two British paperback collections of his short stories, Murder! Murder! and Francis Quarles Investigates, which were published in 1961 and 1965 resepctively.
His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America - an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain's Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writer.
Symons held a number of positions prior to becoming a full-time writer including secretary to an engineering company and advertising copywriter and executive. It was after the end of World War II that he became a free-lance writer and book reviewer and from 1946 to 1956 he wrote a weekly column entitled "Life, People - and Books" for the Manchester Evening News. During the 1950s he was also a regular contributor to Tribune, a left-wing weekly, serving as its literary editor.
He founded and edited 'Twentieth Century Verse', an important little magazine that flourished from 1937 to 1939 and he introduced many young English poets to the public. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry entitled 'Confusions about X', 1939, and 'The Second Man', 1944.
He wrote hie first detective novel, 'The Immaterial Murder Case', long before it was first published in 1945 and this was followed in 1947 by a rare volume entitled 'A Man Called Jones' that features for the first time Inspector Bland, who also appeared in Bland Beginning.
These novles were followed by a whole host of detective novels and he has also written many short stories that were regularly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In additin there are two British paperback collections of his short stories, Murder! Murder! and Francis Quarles Investigates, which were published in 1961 and 1965 resepctively.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 9, 2020
Echoing several classic crime novel(ist)s in both style and plot this novel follows an innocent young detective writer, Charles Applegate, as he finds employment in a strange progressive school for disruptive students to research his next plot. There he gets pulled into the search for some mysterious treasure left by the school building's previous owner, Johnny Bogue. Charles hears all sorts of stories about Bogue. Is he a drug dealer, a corrupt MP, a fascist sympathizer, a seducer? Or is a charming rogue who takes care of his own? Bogue died a decade earlier in a plane crash during WWII. Why now, then, are his former mistress, old business associates, and each sides hired thugs convening in the area of the school? Applegate, with the help of the schoolmaster's niece Hedda, decides to investigate on his own. Along the way he visits a government employee who educates him with an endless parade of acronym-named agencies. There is a dry humor throughout the book and, as I said echoes of Graham Green (especially his character Harry Lime), Eric Ambler, John Buchan, and, I believe, Dashiel Hammett. The book is very knowing in its references, adding to the fun. However, the book is from the 1950s and gay characters are stereotyped and Hedda comes out one time in a pair of trousers referred to as n****r brown.
June 13, 2013
My, but this book has a lot of characters. Too many, in my opinion, because I couldn’t keep track of them all. And then at least two of them have aliases. It’s Dickensian in a way, but most of Dickens’ minor characters are just one and done, and don’t pop up 50 pages later expecting me to remember who they are and why they’re important.
I was excited when I read in the description that this was taking place in an English boarding school. As an American, the differences between the American and British systems intrigue me, and I enjoy books largely set in British schools: the whole Harry Potter series, A Tale Etched In Blood And Hard Black Pencil, Cat Among the Pigeons, Nicholas Nickleby. So I felt a bit gypped when most of the kids are sent home before we’ve even been properly introduced after the murder which occurs almost immediately. Also, the majority of the novel is set off school grounds. Too bad.
One further gripe, and this is relatively minor, but probably should have been caught in the editing stages: you have a character who is an alcoholic, whose stash of liquor is found and destroyed, but then a day or two later whiskey is easily found when needed for medicinal purposes.
I disliked most the parts toward the end where Symons brings in all the espionage/spy/double agent/war-related bits, which were what I disliked about his The Broken Penny, and it has the two main characters fall in love and decide to get married when they’ve only known each other a few days, which is apparently the natural conclusion in these stressful life-and-death situations, but I enjoyed the treasure-hunting parts the most, and when Charles and Hedda are talking to the locals, tying to find information about Johnny Bogue.
I was excited when I read in the description that this was taking place in an English boarding school. As an American, the differences between the American and British systems intrigue me, and I enjoy books largely set in British schools: the whole Harry Potter series, A Tale Etched In Blood And Hard Black Pencil, Cat Among the Pigeons, Nicholas Nickleby. So I felt a bit gypped when most of the kids are sent home before we’ve even been properly introduced after the murder which occurs almost immediately. Also, the majority of the novel is set off school grounds. Too bad.
One further gripe, and this is relatively minor, but probably should have been caught in the editing stages: you have a character who is an alcoholic, whose stash of liquor is found and destroyed, but then a day or two later whiskey is easily found when needed for medicinal purposes.
I disliked most the parts toward the end where Symons brings in all the espionage/spy/double agent/war-related bits, which were what I disliked about his The Broken Penny, and it has the two main characters fall in love and decide to get married when they’ve only known each other a few days, which is apparently the natural conclusion in these stressful life-and-death situations, but I enjoyed the treasure-hunting parts the most, and when Charles and Hedda are talking to the locals, tying to find information about Johnny Bogue.
October 24, 2014
This paperback (pub 1971) had been on my physical shelf of mysteries for years, brittle and yellowed, probably bought at a church rummage sale and unread. I thought I'd read it long ago, but really had not until last week, when it was a haphazard pull. Glad I did, for an ingenious plot, a con man crook prefiguring a LeCarre character, and a setting in a place I like (Romney Marsh in Southeast England). The characters were pretty much from central casting. The wrap-up was jarring, out of character with the slightly humorous tone of most of the book.
June 19, 2014
A good old-fashioned mystery novel.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews