Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1936)

 

Oct 15: Reading now. Please check back again! RM

This review is of the Kindle edition.

About the author: J. Jefferson Farjeon worked for Amalgamated Press in London before going freelance. One of Farjeon's best known works was a 1925 play, Number 17, which was made into a number of films, including Number Seventeen (1932) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and joined the UK Penguin Crime series as a novel in 1939. Farjeon's crime novels were admired by Dorothy L. Sayers, who called him "unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures." (from a Wikipedia article).

Major characters:

Lord and Lady Aveling, the hosts
Anne Aveling, their daughter
Mrs. -- Morris, Lady Aveling's invalid mother
Thomas Newson, butler
Bessie Hill, maid

Detective-Inspector Kendall

The thirteen guests:

1. Nadine Leveridge, a widow and ingenue
2. John Foss, of the injured foot
3. Harold Taverley, the cricketer
4. Leicester Pratt, a painter
5. Mr. -- Rowe, a sausage maker
6. Mrs. -- Rowe, his wife
7. Ruth Rowe, their daughter
8. Edyth Fermoy-Jones, a mystery writer
9. Sir James Earnshaw
10. Zena Wilding, an aactress
11. Lionel Bultin, gossip columnist
12. Mr. Henry Chater
13. Mrs. -- Chater

Locale: Bragley Court, a country house in Flensham, outside London

Synopsis: John Foss, depressed from having a marriage proposal rebuffed, wants to get away for a bit, so takes a train to Flensham on the spur of the moment. When getting off at the station, he catches his foot and turns his ankle. Nadine Leveridge assists him, and takes him along to Bragley Court, a country house of Lord and Lady Aveling, who are hosting a gathering she is attending.

John is placed on a sofa in the "ante-room" (I do hope the ante-room is equipped with anti-macassars) where can be observe the arrival of the twelve guests (he makes 13).

The first indication of an unpleasant gathering is the defacing of a portrait of Anne Aveling, daughter of the hosts, which Leicester Pratt had been painting. Then the Aveling's dog is killed. Next, the body of man - a stranger - is found at the bottom of a cliff.

Review: My first thought was: here we go, the isolated country house and a big guest list. Next we need a snowstorm and the guests knocked off one by one. The invalid mother upstairs is instantly suspicious, as is any alleged invalid in a murder mystery!

One aspect of this high-character count book I like is the methodical introduction of all the guests to John Foss, as we, the reader, observe and become acquainted with them.

However, John Foss was a disappointment. I expected he would be the observer-in-charge and find vital clues, but he is forgotten for most of the book, only returning at the end. Likewise with the invalid Mrs. Morris; whose exit at the end is ambiguous - is she alive or dead? Not sure. Edyth Fermoy-Jones, a mystery writer, is amusing as she shamelessly plugs her books at any opportunity, and snoops around for new plot ideas. Some of the guests are just cardboard and could be edited out without affecting the story, they only serve to enlarge the suspect pool.

You may also enjoy this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.

The Master Criminal by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1924)

 

About the author:  J. Jefferson Farjeon worked for Amalgamated Press in London before going freelance. One of Farjeon's best known works was a 1925 play, Number 17, which was made into a number of films, including Number Seventeen (1932) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and joined the UK Penguin Crime series as a novel in 1939. He also wrote the screenplay for Michael Powell's My Friend the King (1932) and provided the story for Bernard Vorhaus's The Ghost Camera (1933). Farjeon's crime novels were admired by Dorothy L. Sayers, who called him "unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures." (from a Wikipedia article). 

Major characters:

The criminal gang:

• John Mordaunt, a.k.a. Mr. Dicks, the master criminal
• Beatrice Fuller, moll
• Edward Tapley, the tall man
• Joe Flipp, the dwarf
• Jack Baxter, a.k.a. A. P. Smith
• Arthur Lancing, a.k.a. George Finch, a.k.a. Alf Smith

The others:

• Geoffrey Mordaunt, John's brother, of Scotland Yard
• Joan Heather, Geoffrey's fiancée
• James Cardhew, owner of the ruby
• Wilfred Hobson, of Scotland Yard; a.k.a. Mr. Killick

Locale: London and environs

Synopsis: John Mordaunt, alias Mr. Dicks, is the master criminal and leads a gang consisting of beautiful Beatrice Fuller and others. One of the gang - Baxter, alias A.P. Smith, was assigned to steal a valuble ruby from James Cardhew. The theft went bad. Cardhew was killed, then Baxter shot by the authorities, and the ruby lost somewhere.

John seeks out a fall guy to go search for and retrieve the ruby. The gang has a meeting and chooses an unkempt tramp who has been following John around. John and the tramp meet privately, and the tramp reveals himself to be John's brother, Geoffrey Mordaunt of Scotland Yard, in disguise. He had been following John in order to apprehend him. They wind up in a standoff, and John, seeing the inevitable, turns his gun on himself. Geoffrey quickly disguises himself as John, in order to infiltrate the gang and recover the ruby.

Review: Another good period mystery by J. Jefferson Farjeon. He employs his usual little tricks as people having multiple identities and disguises. As others have noted, he excelled in creating creepy, gloomy atmospheres. A couple of excerpts:

...added to these things was the strange atmosphere of the hosue itself, its haunting setting, and utter loneliness. Amid this wilderness of trees there should have been peace; and peace, in one sense, there was; but it was a brooding, malignant peace, throbbing with subconscious discord.

...he glanced out of the window. The velvet shadoes of the spires had by now licked their way right across the lawn below, and were pointing, like black arrows, into the bushes.

I enjoyed the part where Mordaunt escapes across a lake in a leaky boat, and walks through the dark forest in search of a woodcutter's hut for a shelter; bribing the woodcutter to not reveal his presence. 

A cringeworthy part was a restaurant scene where no one wants to share a table with a Black man.

This title is available for Kindle.

No. 17 by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1926)

This review is of the 2016 paperback edition of this 1926 novel, which was first produced as a play.
Major characters:

• Ben the Tramp
• Gilbert Fordyce
• Eddie Scott, Fordyce’s friend
• Rose Ackroyd, the girl next door
• Smith, the man with the crooked shoulder
• (the elder) Brant, a house-hunter
• Henry Brant, his nephew
• Nora Brant, his niece

Locale: London

Synopsis: Ben, out of work Merchant seaman, is destitute. Groping his way through the London fog, he finds a house - No. 17 - with the door ajar. Finding no one apparently inside, he takes shelter in an upstairs room for the night. Next, a man with a crooked shoulder enters the house. Ben, frightened, runs out to the sidewalk and into Gilbert Fordyce, who takes interest in the house and goes inside with Ben. In the upstairs room they find a corpse - the man with the crooked shoulder - and a long cupboard. Someone then enters through the skylight, and they grab the intruder to find it is a girl - Rose Ackroyd - who lives next door, and was searching for her father who went out and did not return. 

Ben retrieves a gun from the corpse. The next visitors to the house are elder Mr. Brant, his nephew Henry, and niece Nora. They pose as house-hunters while Fordyce poses as a sales agent, and tries to get rid of them unsuccessfully. Ben and Fordyce and afraid Rose and the Brants will find the corpse, but when they look again, it is gone.

Review: This is the first of the Ben the Tramp novels, and employs the Farjeon formula: ‘man goes for a walk, finds a corpse and a girl’.

Creepiness abounds in the fog and dark house. The trips up and and down the stairs are excruciatingly drawn-out and slow. Ben’s words are sometimes hard to understand in print as his dialect is rendered phonetically, and sounding them out is needed to reveal them ... 'berlud' folled me a while until I caught on ... blood.

The story's genesis as a play is obvious - all the action takes place in one room or in the street, and as the plot progresses, the characters have many changes of identity in the usual "Now *I* have the gun and I will tie *YOU* up" sort of exchanges. The roles get hopelessly tangled and confused. Don't try to follow too attentively, just ride the roller coaster.

This story was also made into a 1932 film, Number Seventeen, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which follows the book closely and has had good reviews as well. It is a standard item on Hitchcock collection DVDs.

The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1932)

About the author: J. Jefferson Farjeon worked for Amalgamated Press in London before going freelance. One of Farjeon's best known works was a 1925 play, Number 17, which was made into a number of films, including Number Seventeen (1932) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and joined the UK Penguin Crime series as a novel in 1939. He also wrote the screenplay for Michael Powell's My Friend the King (1932) and provided the story for Bernard Vorhaus's The Ghost Camera (1933). Farjeon's crime novels were admired by Dorothy L. Sayers, who called him "unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures." (from a Wikipedia article). 

Major characters:

• Richard Temperley, the train traveller
• Winifred Mostyn, his sister
• John Amble, the snoring man (victim #1)
• Sylvia Wynne
• Ledlow, Sylvia's grandfather
• Martha, a gypsy (victim #2)
• Albert Bowes, a taxi driver (victim #3)
• The Countryman
• The Man with No Arms
• Detective-Inspector James
• Policeman Dutton

Locale: England

Synopsis: Richard Temperley is travelling on a slow night train and is annoyed by a fellow passenger, John Amble, who snores constantly. They arrive at Euston Station at 5 AM, much too early for anything to be open. They are directed to the local hotel's public smoking room, where they can rest for a few hours. Temperley has a passing encounter with an enchanting woman, Sylvia Wynne. She leaves the smoking room. Temperley becomes concerned that Amble has ceased snoring - checks on him - to find he is dead; with a enamelled letter Z left behind. Detective-Inspector James arrives to determine Amble had been shot from the room's window, but unsure if the shot originated inside or outside.

Temperley finds Sylvia's purse. He does not report it, but decides to take matters into his own hands. He traces her back to her studio apartment. All the time, policeman Dutton is lurking, watching Temperley in order to find Sylvia.

A second death occurs - Martha, a gypsy woman, in a field in Charlton. Temperley believes Sylvia has gone there. A long chase ensues as Sylvia is chased by Temperley, who is in turn chased by Dutton as their path crosses England. Always lurking in the background is The Countryman, apparently a farmer.

Review:

This is a mystery and chase thriller rolled into one. An unknown murderer is on the loose, leaving enamelled "Z"s behind as a signature device. As we near the end of the chase, it is explained why the unconnected victims were chosen as far distant locations. The bizarre criminal with the fascination of "Z" reminds me of the early Ellery Queens with the country names in the titles (Greek Coffin, Chinese Orange, etc.)

Many of the particulars of the action are described in roundabout ways, leaving the reader to fill in the details. For example, the accounts of the deaths are vague and I was not really sure if a death had indeed occurred, until it was confirmed in later accounts. 

On the last leg of the chase, the killer is revealed to the reader, and the story turns thriller.*

Farjeon has a couple oddities: many people - even major characters - are given descriptive names instead of specific ones (The Countryman, The Man with the Monocle, The Man with No Arms, etc). The other aspect which grates a little is the plethora of Exclamation Points even to unimportant sentences! It gives the writing a Hardy Boys feel! ('It's a telegram!' He exclaimed!)

This is a good page-turner, and my third Farjeon. The first (Mystery in White) was excellent, the second (Seven Dead) was so-so, and this one almost as good as Mystery in White. I will seek out more Farjeons from the British Library Crime Classics series (Amazon), many also available for Kindle.

An aside: You have heard of the old stereotype of the detective standing on the street, leaning against a lamppost, holding a newspaper, and watching someone through a round hole cut in the paper - but this is the first time I have seen it as a serious part of a story (p.70)! Perhaps this is where the trope originated.

*I define a thriller as one where the killer is known to the reader, the mystery becoming will he get caught?

Seven Dead by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1939)

About the author: J. Jefferson Farjeon worked for Amalgamated Press in London before going freelance. One of Farjeon's best known works was a 1925 play, Number 17, which was made into a number of films, including Number Seventeen (1932) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and joined the UK Penguin Crime series as a novel in 1939. He also wrote the screenplay for Michael Powell's My Friend the King (1932) and provided the story for Bernard Vorhaus's The Ghost Camera (1933). Farjeon's crime novels were admired by Dorothy L. Sayers, who called him "unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures." (from a Wikipedia article). 

Major characters:

• Ted Lyte, amateur thief
• Detective Inspector Kendall
• Thomas Hazeldean, freelance news writer/yachtsman
• John Fenner, house owner
• Dora Fenner, his niece
• Madame Paula, host of the French pension (boarding house)
• Dr. Jones, Madame Paula's husband
• Gustav, the mysterious silks seller

Synopsis: Ted Lyte, amateur thief, chose the wrong house for his first burglary. After entering the isolated house, Ted stumbles upon a locked room containing seven dead bodies. Detective Inspector Kendall takes on the case with the help of passing freelance news correspondent/yachtsman Thomas Hazeldean. They find some odd things: an ancient cricket ball on the mantle, a dead cat in the back yard, and a cryptic note referencing a "suicide club" with a coded reference to where they can find "the particulars". The search for the house's owners, John Fenner and his niece Dora Fenner, leads Hazeldean to Boulogne, France; where he catches up to them. They are unaware of the tragedy which occurred after their departure. The Fenners are staying at a "pension" (boarding house) run by Madame Paula, who husband, Dr. Jones, is promptly killed in an airplane crash. A mysterious "dark-skinned silks seller" (later identified as Gustav) follows the Fenners around. 

Review: Creepy happenings and atmosphere abound. The scenes in Boulogne have a Casablanca atmosphere, where shady peddlers lurking around and peeking in windows.

The questioning of Dora by Hazeldean runs way too long, and stretches believability - who would respond to persistent questioning by a stranger who does not reveal why he wants to know?

The questioning of  French maid Maria also runs way too long - and is rendered in "Frenglish" which seems to be a little of both, alternating between confounding and amusing:

"Mais non! And I tell 'im! But when I go to ze door 'e get in my way, and when I slap 'is face, oui, 'e bite me; zen I bite 'im, and we 'ave, qu'est-ce que c'est? - le fisticuff!"

There are loads of loose starts and ends. By loose starts, I mean something just appears in the story which has not been mentioned previously. By loose ends, some events are just not explained. A dead man is found with the silks seller, but it never explained who it was. It was assumed to be a certain person, yet that person shows up alive and well later in the story. The writer could have used a "continuity person" to match up starts and ends.

Some aspects stretch credibility: a dead man in England has half a red pencil clutched in his hand, and the other half is found later on a desert island in the South Atlantic.

Overall, a bit cluttered and haphazard; not as good as the other title I have read (Mystery in White). 

One little annoyance: This British Library Crime Classic edition, being on metric sized paper, is larger than US paperbacks, and is perfect bound (individual pages glued into the binding) rather than signature bound and my pages kept detaching from the binding glue and coming loose as they are turned. Perhaps just an issue with my copy, but it made one-handed reading pretty much impossible.

Also please see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.

Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1937)

About the author: J. Jefferson Farjeon worked for Amalgamated Press in London before going freelance. One of Farjeon's best known works was a 1925 play, Number 17, which was made into a number of films, including Number Seventeen (1932) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and joined the UK Penguin Crime series as a novel in 1939. He also wrote the screenplay for Michael Powell's My Friend the King (1932) and provided the story for Bernard Vorhaus's The Ghost Camera (1933). Farjeon's crime novels were admired by Dorothy L. Sayers, who called him "unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures." (from a Wikipedia article). 

Major characters:

Train passengers:

• Mr. Edward Maltby, of the Royal Psychical Society
• Robert Thomson, a clerk
• David Carrington
• Lydia Carrington, David's sister
• Jessie Noyes, the blonde chorus girl
• Mr. Hopkins, "the elderly bore"

Smith, the local cockney
William Strange, owner of the house
Nora Strange, his daughter
Charles Shaw, their house-sitter

Locale: near Hennersby, England

Synopsis: Six passengers share a compartment on the local train, which becomes snowbound on Christmas Eve. They decide to risk walking out. They trudge through the snowstorm, and decide to seek shelter in a nearby house. The door is unlocked, so they go in to find no one home, but the fire going and tea on the stove. While they are warming up, they notice a knife on the floor and decide to leave it as is. 

Mr. Hopkins had followed later and became lost in the snow. The group pulls him in, and he tells that he saw a dead man (W. T. Barling) in the next train compartment.

They are soon joined by a local Cockney, Mr. Smith, who is a bit crude and disreputable.

While investigating a mound in the snow nearby (is it a body?) they find William Strange and Nora Strange - owners of the house - their car was stuck in a ditch neaby.

All stay in the house for Christmas - suspicious of each other - and eventually learn the fate of some earlier residents.

Review: This is a good Christmas read. A lot of emphasis is placed on following and interpreting tracks in the snow, and the order of departure from the train and arrival at the house, but these points, like the knife on the floor, are not relevant to the story. In fact, two of the murders occurred long ago and are only revealed now.

One aspect I found most interesting was when Edward Maltby, somewhat of a psychic, discusses how touching artifacts from the past can lead to a connection. I have always enjoyed the ability to touch items from the past - whether it a book with a long-ago gift inscription, or the piece of a Japanese airplane my father brought home as a war souvenir - and imagining how another person had touched these same objects long ago.

Another refreshing aspect - there is no detective in the story. The housebound passengers are left to resolve events all by themselves. There is even a bit of love story worked in as well. I will now have to check for other Farjeon books - I see there is another railway mystery "The Z Murders".

Also see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.