Mr. Fortune: Eight of His Adventures

Reggie Fortune

by H.C. Bailey

Meet Mr Reggie Fortune, a doctor by profession, a detective by accident. Mr Fortune is not an ordinary gum-shoe sleuth, yet he has long since established himself as one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of crime detectives. Attached in a loose way to the Home Office and Scotland Yard, he is utterly fearless, and with a cold astuteness belied by his cherubic appearance. His speciality is medicine, although he does not practice. But for his expert opinion on such matters as recently deceased bodies, the more difficult poisons and the like, the Yard would be hard pressed to investigate without him. Mr Fortune’s Trials is the third of his casebooks and includes six curious, gruesome and ingenious crimes which Reggie investigates through minute, scientific detection.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henry Christopher Bailey was an English crime novelist and one of the Big Five writers of detective fictions in the ‘Golden Age’ which also included Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, R. Austin Freeman and Freeman Wills Crofts. Hugely popular at the time and adored by critics he is today unjustly rather forgotten. This was at least partly due to tortuous issues regarding his literary estate. His best-known creation was the plump and drawling Reginald Fortune. The medically trained ‘Mr Fortune’ was a scientific adviser to Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department and starred in twenty-two novels and short story collections. Much praised for his puzzles and characterisation, the Mr Fortune stories have echoes of Lord Peter Wimsey but are much darker, tackling subjects not touched upon by other major writers, including police corruption and murderous obsession. Bailey’s other series character was Joshua Clunk, a sanctimonious lawyer who exposes corruption and blackmail but also manages to profit from the crimes he investigates. H.C. Bailey died in 1961.

PRAISE FOR H.C. BAILEY’S ‘MR FORTUNE’

‘Clever and entertaining’ BOSTON TRANSCRIPT

‘The most engaging detective of fiction’ THE OBSERVER

‘Brilliant… his plots have an immense and admirable ingenuity’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

‘Fortune is a super sleuth who solves problems that are too much for Scotland Yard’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘It is difficult to find in modern detection, puzzles more elaborately conceived and mystifying’ HOWARD HAYCROFT

‘Mr Bailey is always readable’ NEW STATESMAN

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction, Crime

347 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Henry Christopher Bailey (1878 – 1961) was an English author of detective fiction. Bailey wrote mainly short stories featuring a medically-qualified detective called Reggie Fortune. Fortune's mannerisms and speech put him into the same class as Lord Peter Wimsey but the stories are much darker, and often involve murderous obsession, police corruption, financial skulduggery, child abuse and miscarriages of justice. Although Mr Fortune is seen at his best in short stories, he also appears in several novels.

A second series character, Josiah Clunk, is a sanctimonious lawyer who exposes corruption and blackmail in local politics, and who manages to profit from the crimes. He appears in eleven novels published between 1930 and 1950, including The Sullen Sky Mystery (1935), widely regarded as Bailey's magnum opus.

Reviews

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another interesting anthology regarding Mr. Fortune and his friend and colleague Mr. Lomas, some sort of superintendent at Scotland Yard.

I'm not normally crazy about anthologies but I enjoy the ones regarding Mr. Fortune.

[Georgie-who-is-Sarah-Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated, but the acerbic style is delightful.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much a product of its time in the attitude of the characters towards the non-English, women and the class system. If you can read past that, this collection of eight stories is, for the most part, quite enjoyable. The stories have a darker outlook on man, the world and fate than the Big Four. Reggie, while quite kind and loving with his wife, is even colder than Poirot in resigning the guilty to damnation and their deserved fate. Overall though, a nice way to delve into the era of the great British mystery writers and come up with something a bit different than Christie, Sayers or Allingham.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a little repetitive to say this is a collection of six longish stories about Scotland Yard's medical expert Reginald Fortune, but very simple, that's what it is. Unfortunately, I've read two of the stories recently, so they lack the charm of novelty, but they retain the charm of Reggie dealing with, in one case, some difficult women, and in the other, a ruthless murder plot. The last story, "The Profiteers," has a more or less supernatural conclusion, which is unusual in Bailey's work.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another eight stories with a nice mix, though tending toward the lighter end of the spectrum (The Hermit Crab), to delight readers of this old series. Most of the stories are set after World War I. I suspect that at this point Fortune is very much an acquired taste.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a collection of short stories with detective Reggie Fortune at the centre. The stories are generally from the 1920s and 1930s.

[Wendy Hellwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interestin'. Wonderful characters! Possibility of readin' more of Mr. Fortune and his adventures.

[Paul in SF · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories were, for the most part, up to the usual standard of the Reginald Fortune stories I have read so far. But I absolutely did not like the final story in this collection, The Profiteers, and that is why I gave this collection only 3 stars. (spoilers follow for this story only) In this story, Mr. Fortune comes across two deaths that he cannot explain, and so convinced is he, apparently, of his own infallibility, that he concludes that the solution must be mystical, and that ghosts or spirits are the only answer. This is so contrary to the normally very real-world approach of Mr. Fortune that it just seemed out of place for this author and this detective character. It was cheap and pointless. It is also regrettable that this is the last Mr. Fortune story I may read for some time, as I have gone through all the story collections that I can find at anything like a reasonable price. I still hope that more of them will be digitized some time soon, and I will read them if I can get them. I hope, H.C. Bailey, that this level of disappointment in your work does not recur in any of the other collections. Harrumph!

[Valerie]

This collection of short stories has interesting cases, although at times it's hard to get a bead on Reggie Fortune. His solutions are hard-fought but methodical, and in the end, he always gets his man (or woman).

[Lowe Family · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always enjoy

I discovered Reggie Fortune in an anthology of other Golden Age mystery writers. He’s different from other “great detectives,” and I find the the plots and characters always enjoyable. This was no exception.