Uninvited Guests

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

• ‘An ingenious country house mystery… keeps the reader on tenterhooks from the very first page’ NEW YORK TIMES • ‘J. Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures’ DOROTHY L. SAYERS • The much-revered crime writer J. Jefferson Farjeon’s second crime novel back in print for the first time in almost a century. To Brambles, a dilapidated yet comfortable English country house, come the uninvited a motley crew, who appear at the most unexpected hours and on the most impossible errands. Singly and in procession they arrive to trouble the calm of Ambrose Blythe, sexagenarian owner of Brambles, and of Peter Haslam, his house guest. Add to these an imperturbable butler, a tragic-eyed damsel and the super-logician Detective Grant to complete the ingredients of the perfect Golden Age of Crime story. ABOUT THE Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was born into a literary family in Hampstead, north west London in 1883. He was a prolific crime writer, writing over sixty novels over the course of thirty years, many published by William Collins & Sons and featuring in their hugely popular Collins Crime Club. Dorothy L. Sayers said of his work, ‘every word is entertaining.’ His best-known novel (and play) NUMBER 17, was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock. He died in 1955. PRAISE FOR J. JEFFERSON ‘Jefferson Farjeon writes thrills enhanced by good writing, good humour, and good character sketches’ THE SUNDAY TIMES; ‘A Sherlock Holmes novel of the first degree’ NEW YORK POST; ‘This delightful writer delivers the goods once again’ THE DAILY HERALD; ‘“Mystery in White” is the perfect book for a winter's evening, a cosy chair and an open fire’ THE DAILY MAIL; ‘An undiluted joy… Ben is the plum of the book; his personality impresses itself upon the imagination’ LIVERPOOL POST; ‘A top-hole thriller by a writer who knows his job’ THE DAILY EXPRESS.

Genres: Mystery, British Literature

290 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was always going to be a writer as, born in London, he was the son of Benjamin Leopold Farjeon who at the time was a well-known novelist whose other children were Eleanor Farjeon, who became a children's writer, and Herbert Farjeon, who became a playwright and who wrote the well-respected 'A Cricket Bag'.

The family were descended from Thomas Jefferson but it was his maternal grandfather, the American actor Joseph Jefferson, after whom Joseph was named. He was educated privately and at Peterborough Lodge and one of his early jobs, from 1910 to 1920, was doing some editorial work for the Amalgamated Press.

His first published work was in 1924 when Brentano's produced 'The Master Criminal', which is a tale of identity reversal involving two brothers, one a master detective, the other a master criminal. A New York Times reviewer commented favourably, "Mr. Farjeon displays a great deal of knowledge about story-telling and multiplies the interest of his plot through a terse, telling style and a rigid compression." This was the beginning of a career that would encompass over 80 published novels, ending with 'The Caravan Adventure' in 1955.

He also wrote a number of plays, some of which were filmed, most notably Number Seventeen which was produced by Alfred Hitchcock in 1932, and many short stories.

Many of his novels were in the mystery and detective genre although he was recognised as being one of the first novelists to entwine romance with crime. In addition he was known for his keen humour and flashing wit but he also used sinister and terrifying storylines quite freely. One critic for the Saturday Review of Literature reviewed one of his later books writing that it was "amusing, satirical, and [a] frequently hair-raising yarn of an author who got dangerously mixed up with his imaginary characters. Tricky."

When he died at Hove in Sussex in 1955 his obituary in The Times wrote of his "deserved popularity for ingenious and entertaining plots and characterization".

Gerry Wolstenholme
June 2010

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just finished Uninvited Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon, (1925).This story starts with an interesting premise/hook which the book’s title does an admirable job of describing and teams together an amateur and professional sleuth to do the investigating/solving.

Unfortunately for this reader the story crumbles under its own weight with a fairly cheesy love story and a lot of - literal - meandering . For instance our amateur sleuth is a big late night bicycle rider and his professional counterpart likes his disguises - both of which grew tiresome - thus rendering the not so creative conclusion anti-climactic.

As an aside - some of the statements and actions of Detective Grant - the professional - could easily have been made by Peter Sellers as Clouseau. Not sure if that was the author’s intention.

Having several other mysteries on the shelf by this author I’ll read another, but the proverbial jury is out whether I’ll buy any more Farjeon books.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the third book by this author I have read; I should have reread my own reviews and maybe I would have skipped this.

Pros: very short chapters (a plus for someone like me with a short attention span so I don’t have to stop reading mid-chapter.) Also, a Pro is the writing style. Cons: the plot. It’s sort of silly and confusing. And it features a tiresome trope where the young hero falls in love with a woman he just met and goes to extraordinary lengths to aid her – even giving up 25 pounds in his desire to help (a large sum in the 1920’s).

It’s way too long and I did wind up skimming many parts that were not integral to the goings-on (describing walks along country lanes, for instance; and inner philosophical thoughts of various characters). There are much better 100-year-old British mysteries available.

[Charlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Farjeon adds one character after another in this disturbing mystery set in and around Brambles, an English country house where one would not expect top be disturbed. Ah, but Ambrose Blythe, the sixty-something owner of Brambles, is disturbed often by strangers who come at night with suspicious questions and requests for help. Blythe is almost at his wits' end when he calls on Detective Grant to find out what these strangers are really after. An unusual and absorbing read.

[Denise Gossow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good story with some humor from one of the characters.