Smallbone Deceased - SPOILER Thread

[Susan]

Welcome to our June/July buddy read of Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert

Published in 1950, this is the fourth in the Inspector Hazelrigg series. Gilbert was, himself, a solicitor and set this mystery in the fictional London firm of Horniman, Birley and Craine. It regularly appears in 'top 100' mysteries and is considered Gilbert's best book.

A respectable firm of London solicitors becomes the scene of suspicion and intrigue. A hermetically-sealed deed-box was never meant to be used for storing a body and its discovery leads to the business and social life of the firm being investigated.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

[Jill]

I did enjoy the humour in this book. The banter between the solicitors, and also the gossip from the secretaries was really funny and what felt like real comments which would be made today. The lack of sleep experienced by one of the main characters amazed me, but I don't think it is known as parasomnias, handy to have though as he got so much reading done.
The author gave some believable reasons why each of the suspects could have been the murderer, and just when it looked as it everything had been worked out, I found I was wrong. Although there was quite a bit of legal jargon, it didn't seem overdone.

[Susan]

And who else was initially confused by Bohun's walking around London in the night - I thought he was up to something at first, until we heard about his sleeping condition.

[Pamela]

I thought this was great, some interesting characters and really witty dialogue, and the setting was well done. I was a bit misled by the plan of the office being there at the beginning and the discussions about whether anyone could have got past the secretaries - I kept thinking someone must have been hiding in one of the rooms but actually the plan didn't really figure in the plot.

[Judy]

I was also confused by Bohun walking round London! I thought he was a great character and am interested to see from the introduction that he featured in some of Gilbert's short stories.

I enjoyed the office atmosphere, but I didn't think the women in the office came across as individuals - I couldn't tell them apart, and was a bit disappointed by the identity of the killer as she was someone who had come in so little. Anyway, I liked it, but I liked Death in Captivity a lot more.

[Jason]

Pamela wrote: "I was a bit misled by the plan of the office being there at the beginning and the discussions about whether anyone could have got past the secretaries - I kept thinking someone must have been hiding in one of the rooms but actually the plan didn't really figure in the plot."

I agree with you, Pamela. Fair-play mysteries of earlier years often included maps of manor houses or villages as part of the puzzle, and I felt that was Gilbert's intention, but he never did anything with the office room layout. It didn't help that on at least three occasions in early chapters my paperback copy had a little footnote after a reference that said (see map on p. 8). But those references melted away after a few chapters.

Ironically, the simple box listing the Saturdays when the employees were paired together was the real and weighty clue, so perhaps the office map was a bit of a red herring?

[Jason]

This is the first time reading the rather celebrated (in GAD and genre circles) book, and I enjoyed it throughout. I read somewhere that Michael Gilbert liked to not tell the same story twice, which is admirable and tricky for an author, IMO. But that would fit when considering the differences in tone and scope between Smallbone Deceased and Death In Captivity.

The breezy, often understated and witty writing of Smallbone really charmed, and I was absorbed by the mystery presented and the sketching of characters. I agree a bit with Judy's assessment that the women weren't as well-delineated as the men, although my own impression of each (perhaps through sheer will as a reader trying to differentiate) became clearer as the story moved along.

My biggest criticism, aside from a little squabble over a practical deed box that could hide a small body and yet not essentially be a trunk, had to do with the killer's motive. As this is the spoiler thread, I'll address this. Here's what I offered in my web review. Your thoughts?

While Barzun and Taylor, in their Catalogue of Crime, praise the "two splendid murders" and assert that "the motives are good," I would humbly submit that one motive is good – with a hiding-in-plain-sight clue that is quite masterful – while the other came as a surprise, almost to the point of being an explanatory afterthought. It invited me to return to what I knew about that character (in a story that handles character psychology so efficiently and successfully) to see if I might have arrived at the motive before it was stated. And the verdict was… kind of, but not really. It presumes a rationale for murder where one generally wouldn't be, and Gilbert seems to be aware of this: he even has his amateur detective Henry Bohun state that "the real reason, the inner reason for [the crime] I don't suppose we shall ever know."

https://www.jasonhalf.com/blog/book-r...

[Susan in NC]

Judy wrote: "I was also confused by Bohun walking round London! I thought he was a great character and am interested to see from the introduction that he featured in some of Gilbert's short stories.

I enjoyed..."
I liked this one more than Death in Captivity, because in that one I felt as a non-British person, I missed some of the jokes, or points of the various personalities. I’d seen American POW films, but Captivity had more of a being-away-at-school vibe, which struck me as odd. Whereas this book, set in a typical legal office, a setting which I am familiar with, seemed much more universally relatable - I recognized the different “types” and could appreciate the office chatter.

[Michaela]

Finished this a few days ago and it wasn’t always easy to understand the legal terms. I also thought the solution a bit odd.