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Tracks in the Snow
Excerpt from Tracks in the Snow
On the morning of the 29th of January, 1896, Eustace Peters was found murdered in his bed at his house, Grenvile Combe, in the parish of Long Wilton, of which I was then rector.
Much mystery attached to the circumstances of his death. It was into my hands that chance threw the clue to this mystery, and it is for me, if for any one, to relate the facts.
To the main fact of all, the death of my own friend on the eve, as I sometimes fancy, of a fuller blossoming of his powers, my writing cannot give the tragic import due to it, for it touched my own life too nearly.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
On the morning of the 29th of January, 1896, Eustace Peters was found murdered in his bed at his house, Grenvile Combe, in the parish of Long Wilton, of which I was then rector.
Much mystery attached to the circumstances of his death. It was into my hands that chance threw the clue to this mystery, and it is for me, if for any one, to relate the facts.
To the main fact of all, the death of my own friend on the eve, as I sometimes fancy, of a fuller blossoming of his powers, my writing cannot give the tragic import due to it, for it touched my own life too nearly.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
289 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1906
About the author
Godfrey Rathbone Benson
15 books3 followersGodfrey Rathbone Benson, 1st Baron Charnwood (6 November 1864 – 3 February 1945) was a British author, academic, Liberal politician and philanthropist.
Benson was born in Alresford, Hampshire, the son of William Benson, a barrister, and Elizabeth Soulsby Smith. He was educated at Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford. He graduated in 1887, and would later become a philosophy lecturer at Balliol. He was involved in politics and represented Woodstock in the House of Commons from 1892 to 1895 and served as Mayor of Lichfield between 1909 and 1911. In the latter year Benson was raised to the peerage as Baron Charnwood, of Castle Donington in the County of Leicester.
Lord Charnwood was the author of many works. These include Abraham Lincoln, which he published in 1916 as an accurate biography, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1923, another historical biography. He was also involved in charitable work with the deaf and disabled, becoming the first President of the National Institute for the Deaf from 1924 until 1935.
Benson was born in Alresford, Hampshire, the son of William Benson, a barrister, and Elizabeth Soulsby Smith. He was educated at Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford. He graduated in 1887, and would later become a philosophy lecturer at Balliol. He was involved in politics and represented Woodstock in the House of Commons from 1892 to 1895 and served as Mayor of Lichfield between 1909 and 1911. In the latter year Benson was raised to the peerage as Baron Charnwood, of Castle Donington in the County of Leicester.
Lord Charnwood was the author of many works. These include Abraham Lincoln, which he published in 1916 as an accurate biography, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1923, another historical biography. He was also involved in charitable work with the deaf and disabled, becoming the first President of the National Institute for the Deaf from 1924 until 1935.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 4, 2023
ON the morning of the 29th of January, 1896, Eustace Peters was found murdered in his bed at his house, Grenvile Combe, in the parish of Long Wilton, of which I was then rector.This is how the book begins. No waiting around for someone to be murdered! It is, perhaps, halfway before we know the full name of the first person narrator. He had known Eustace Peters from childhood. As with most mystery novels, there are very few people who could have committed this murder. It was highly unlikely that the rector could have been one of them - I did not suspect an unreliable narrator.
In the introduction to my recent read of an R. Austin Freeman novel, was included that he was the first to introduce the inverted mystery novel in 1912. In that Introduction it is defined as "the reader is a witness to the crime, the suspense of the chase thereby being eliminated. Interest centers not on whether the criminal will be caught, but on how." In a true inverted mystery, the reader is present at the murder from the beginning and fully knowledgable of who is the perpetrator. Tracks in the Snow borders on this form a full 6 years earlier when we can be pretty darned certain who was the murderer, but we are not present at the crime and our knowledge comes about 1/3 in or thereabouts.
Others who have reviewed this title are apparently not fans of this form. Comments include that once we know who was the perpetrator why continue the novel. Honestly, I find the why as much of interest in a novel as the who. Others mention the writing is overly wordy. Those readers should stick to novels written much later that are far less interesting in style. Here, I thought the characterizations quite good. I enjoyed this right to the end. For me, this is a good 4-stars, neither at the top nor the bottom of that group.
December 18, 2021
Truly baffling…
Eustace Peters had retired from the Consular Service and taken a house in Long Wilton, the parish of which our narrator, Robert Driver, was rector. The two men had become friends, so Driver is shocked and saddened when Peters is found dead in his bed – murdered! The evening before Divers had spent the evening with Peters and some other guests: Callaghan, Thalberg and Vane-Cartwright, each of whom had been known to Peters from different contexts. Footprints in the snow suggest, though, that the murderer had come from outside the house, so suspicion falls first on the gardener who had been overheard threatening that he’d like to kill his employer. It is soon shown he could not have been the guilty man, however, so the other three men are elevated to the position of suspects. For some unexplained reason, the police seem to leave it mostly up to the rector to investigate.
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the books listed in Martin Edwards’ The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, but occasionally I come across one that baffles me utterly – not because of the mystery, but because the book is so bad I can’t understand why it is included. This is one of those. The writing is dull, plodding and repetitive, and the plot, such as it is, is stretched out far too thinly over a whole year, which coincidentally is how much I felt I aged while reading it.
There’s no real mystery. The rector happens on clues, stories and documents by chance and coincidence, which lead him to know who the murderer was and why. But does the book stop then? No, it meanders on and on, trying and failing to build a sense of tension. The story goes out to the mysterious colonial Far East and off to Italy, but the author chooses not to take the reader with it. Instead we stay in England, guests of the rector, the most insistent bore since the Ancient Mariner. We hear about all these possibly exciting events in far-flung places second-hand, through stories people tell the rector or letters they send him.
At the end, Benson treats us to excuses for all the plot holes and a kind of mass filling in of all the gaps in such a clumsy, amateurish way that I might have found it unintentionally hilarious had my brain not ceased to function several hours earlier. I could only assume he’d read back over his manuscript at the end, made a note of all the things that didn’t quite makes sense and, instead of going back and correcting them, simply tried to explain them away.
Apparently this was the only mystery novel Benson wrote, and I can only say that I am heartily glad of that. For me, this was already one too many.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Eustace Peters had retired from the Consular Service and taken a house in Long Wilton, the parish of which our narrator, Robert Driver, was rector. The two men had become friends, so Driver is shocked and saddened when Peters is found dead in his bed – murdered! The evening before Divers had spent the evening with Peters and some other guests: Callaghan, Thalberg and Vane-Cartwright, each of whom had been known to Peters from different contexts. Footprints in the snow suggest, though, that the murderer had come from outside the house, so suspicion falls first on the gardener who had been overheard threatening that he’d like to kill his employer. It is soon shown he could not have been the guilty man, however, so the other three men are elevated to the position of suspects. For some unexplained reason, the police seem to leave it mostly up to the rector to investigate.
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the books listed in Martin Edwards’ The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, but occasionally I come across one that baffles me utterly – not because of the mystery, but because the book is so bad I can’t understand why it is included. This is one of those. The writing is dull, plodding and repetitive, and the plot, such as it is, is stretched out far too thinly over a whole year, which coincidentally is how much I felt I aged while reading it.
There’s no real mystery. The rector happens on clues, stories and documents by chance and coincidence, which lead him to know who the murderer was and why. But does the book stop then? No, it meanders on and on, trying and failing to build a sense of tension. The story goes out to the mysterious colonial Far East and off to Italy, but the author chooses not to take the reader with it. Instead we stay in England, guests of the rector, the most insistent bore since the Ancient Mariner. We hear about all these possibly exciting events in far-flung places second-hand, through stories people tell the rector or letters they send him.
At the end, Benson treats us to excuses for all the plot holes and a kind of mass filling in of all the gaps in such a clumsy, amateurish way that I might have found it unintentionally hilarious had my brain not ceased to function several hours earlier. I could only assume he’d read back over his manuscript at the end, made a note of all the things that didn’t quite makes sense and, instead of going back and correcting them, simply tried to explain them away.
Apparently this was the only mystery novel Benson wrote, and I can only say that I am heartily glad of that. For me, this was already one too many.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
January 3, 2021
The full title is "Tracks in the Snow:Being the History of a Crime", and it is the story of a crime, rather than in any sense a detective novel. Benson had been a philosophy lecturer, and was later to write a well-respected biography of Abraham Lincoln, and these talents are to the fore here.
Overall it is rather slow and dull as well as somewhat repetitious,. It would have made a fairly good short story, I feel.It has good insights into character and motivation, but I read on more out of historical interest than anything.
Overall it is rather slow and dull as well as somewhat repetitious,. It would have made a fairly good short story, I feel.It has good insights into character and motivation, but I read on more out of historical interest than anything.
June 28, 2024
Had to put this in the Did Not Finish shelf. Just not enough there to keep me reading especially with so many books on my TBR pile.
November 1, 2024
Godfrey Benson only wrote one crime novel, which is probably a good thing. Full review: https://murderatthemanse.substack.com...
May 30, 2021
A young minister, temporarily assigned to a small village introduces himself at the beginning of this tale as the narrator, and we soon discover amateur investigator, for a mysterious murder. The victim, a 43-year-old man who had befriended Rev. Driver.
In a straightforward manner — although a little too wordy, the good minister sets out the setting and the main characters. Three business men come to the village and meet together during a dinner hosted by Peters and also attended by Driver. The next day, Peters is found dead in bed.
Driver shares how he learned of the death, how police go about the initial investigation, right though the arrest of a suspect and then the eventual release of that suspect.
At the start of the book, I was pleasantly surprised and eager to read this story. It seemed so clear and easy to read. But that soon changed.
Author Godrey Rathbone Benson, first baron Charnwood, slipped into the wordy and convoluted form of writing that I despaired. The middle of this book was at times, barely understandable for me. And suddenly we didn't really understand what was driving Driver, what the 'clues' meant and why did trust start to trust one character who very clearly looked crazy. (Even after I finished the book, the man still seemed crazy as a bed bug.)
Every character in this book is suspicious and there is nothing in the book, first published in 1906, that truly clarifies why they are not the murderer. At the end, still writing in a confusing manner, we settle on one individual as the guilty party but the reasons why are never clear, even his confession.
All together a mystery that didn't age well. And was disappointing. Charnwood, fortunately only wrote this one mystery.
In a straightforward manner — although a little too wordy, the good minister sets out the setting and the main characters. Three business men come to the village and meet together during a dinner hosted by Peters and also attended by Driver. The next day, Peters is found dead in bed.
Driver shares how he learned of the death, how police go about the initial investigation, right though the arrest of a suspect and then the eventual release of that suspect.
At the start of the book, I was pleasantly surprised and eager to read this story. It seemed so clear and easy to read. But that soon changed.
Author Godrey Rathbone Benson, first baron Charnwood, slipped into the wordy and convoluted form of writing that I despaired. The middle of this book was at times, barely understandable for me. And suddenly we didn't really understand what was driving Driver, what the 'clues' meant and why did trust start to trust one character who very clearly looked crazy. (Even after I finished the book, the man still seemed crazy as a bed bug.)
Every character in this book is suspicious and there is nothing in the book, first published in 1906, that truly clarifies why they are not the murderer. At the end, still writing in a confusing manner, we settle on one individual as the guilty party but the reasons why are never clear, even his confession.
All together a mystery that didn't age well. And was disappointing. Charnwood, fortunately only wrote this one mystery.
June 9, 2020
I was not keen on this mystery. The plot was good but the narrator was without humour or humility. The first person narrator also gave it a narrow compass and there was little dialogue. I was also conscience of it's racist and class ridden position. It's lack of lightness made this all the worse.
Want to Read
November 9, 2018Synopsis: Charnwood's mystery about a man murdered while sitting in his bed as narrated by his friend, the local rector. Did he know the killer?
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews