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Superintendent Burnivel #1
Which Doctor
Professor Fabian Honeychurch investigates the connection between the bludgeoning murder of Doctor Martin Sandeman and the disappearance of a nine-year-old patient from the hospital where the victim worked
180 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 14, 2016
Dr. Honeychurch: But since I can’t claim to be anything of a pharmacological chemist myself, I can’t be sure that there is any simple quantitative mode of assay available for pethidine in any case. There’s a crude biological method, of course; rats’ tails are exposed to radiant heat—
****
Inspector Burnivel: Well, just remember that we’re after a murderer; I don’t know if we’ve got the time to tinker about with any other sort of rat.
Which Doctor (1954) by Edward Candy, the pseudonym for Dr. Barbara Alison Boodson Neville, is set at the Beantwich-Bannister Hospital for Children. Professor Fabian Honeychurch arrives for a scheduled Royal Society of Medicine conference in a rather unorthodox manner. He crawls over a balcony where two boys have their beds--making the acquaintance of the rather precocious Tom Bryant and observing the sleeping Teddy Bannister. Later that night, the brilliant but unpleasant Dr. Martin Sandeman (featured speaker at the conference) is bludgeoned to death in the grounds and Tom disappears from his bed. Has the boy run away--the popular answer--or did he see something in the night that caused the murderer to snatch him or worse?
The heavy favorite for chief suspect is Dr. Rutherford, Sandeman's colleague, who had a disagreement with Sandeman that night and who was going to lose his job due to Sandeman's influence on the head of the hospital. Inspector Burnivel from Scotland Yard is called in and seems to be casting his net far and wide for suspects--focusing first on one and then another. Honeychurch has his own ideas, particularly about the innocence of Rutherford, but each man's first thoughts will be proved wrong before the crime is brought home to the proper villain. And they will have to wade through a controlled experiment, possible drug abuse, and a few psychiatric diagnoses to find the answers.
This was a more satisfying read than Candy's Words for Murder Perhaps which I read in 2014. Words was a decent mystery, but this has an extra layer. Professor Honeychurch is a likeable character and I particularly enjoyed his interactions with Tom Bryant and Rutherford. It's a shame that Tom didn't get more time in the story because he was really quite engaging. The mystery did keep me guessing. I was quite sure I had spotted the culprit and the motive...but Candy led me astray. My main quibble with her is that she spreads red herrings about liberally, but doesn't quite give enough genuine clues. Ironically, this outing, her first mystery, does do a better job at this than Words which was her final mystery novel. ★★★ and 3/4--almost four (and rounded to four on Goodreads).
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
****
Inspector Burnivel: Well, just remember that we’re after a murderer; I don’t know if we’ve got the time to tinker about with any other sort of rat.
Which Doctor (1954) by Edward Candy, the pseudonym for Dr. Barbara Alison Boodson Neville, is set at the Beantwich-Bannister Hospital for Children. Professor Fabian Honeychurch arrives for a scheduled Royal Society of Medicine conference in a rather unorthodox manner. He crawls over a balcony where two boys have their beds--making the acquaintance of the rather precocious Tom Bryant and observing the sleeping Teddy Bannister. Later that night, the brilliant but unpleasant Dr. Martin Sandeman (featured speaker at the conference) is bludgeoned to death in the grounds and Tom disappears from his bed. Has the boy run away--the popular answer--or did he see something in the night that caused the murderer to snatch him or worse?
The heavy favorite for chief suspect is Dr. Rutherford, Sandeman's colleague, who had a disagreement with Sandeman that night and who was going to lose his job due to Sandeman's influence on the head of the hospital. Inspector Burnivel from Scotland Yard is called in and seems to be casting his net far and wide for suspects--focusing first on one and then another. Honeychurch has his own ideas, particularly about the innocence of Rutherford, but each man's first thoughts will be proved wrong before the crime is brought home to the proper villain. And they will have to wade through a controlled experiment, possible drug abuse, and a few psychiatric diagnoses to find the answers.
This was a more satisfying read than Candy's Words for Murder Perhaps which I read in 2014. Words was a decent mystery, but this has an extra layer. Professor Honeychurch is a likeable character and I particularly enjoyed his interactions with Tom Bryant and Rutherford. It's a shame that Tom didn't get more time in the story because he was really quite engaging. The mystery did keep me guessing. I was quite sure I had spotted the culprit and the motive...but Candy led me astray. My main quibble with her is that she spreads red herrings about liberally, but doesn't quite give enough genuine clues. Ironically, this outing, her first mystery, does do a better job at this than Words which was her final mystery novel. ★★★ and 3/4--almost four (and rounded to four on Goodreads).
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
April 29, 2020
When an unpopular doctor is killed at a Midlands pediatric hospital, the inspector who's come up from Scotland Yard to investigate finds a plethora of suspects. The most suspicious of them all, however, is a young doctor who has been driven out of his post by the dead man. Dr. Fabian Honeychurch, the elderly, highly-esteemed doctor who is at the hospital for a conference, is sure that the man is innocent--but he's more concerned about the missing boy who disappeared from his ward on the night of the murder.
December 12, 2010
An unpopular pediatrician in a British research hospital is murdered. Why? His addiction to painkillers and diversion of drugs from experimental patients? His blackmailing of other doctors? His affair with another doctor's wife who later committed suicide? And what happened to the boy patient who disappeared the night of the murder? Clever dialogue and plot but there was an unreality to some of the key characters' actions that undermined the story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews