Big Ben Strikes Eleven

December 15, 2024
The first of three detective novels Magarschack published, this one in 1934, before he made a more enduring reputation by translating Russian novels into English. Out for a walk on Hampstead Heath after his daughter, Agnes, responded to his threat to beat her by turning on him, window cleaner Samuel Halstead comes upon a body in a parked limousine. And not just any body. The dead man is Sir Robert Boniface, a captain of industry whose demise is bound to cause aftershocks in high places. The shocks on the page are considerably more sedate. Approached for information about the death, Agnes' love, artist Matt Caldwell, whose recent portrait of Sir Robert had been indignantly rejected by the sitter, reacts with unalloyed delight before disappearing. Frank Littlewood, a nephew and former secretary the baronet had recently dismissed, is equally dry-eyed. The other suspects--Lord Rollesborough, Sir Robert's vice chair and successor at the Industrial Development Trust; Benjamin Fuller, the publicity head for Sir Robert's office; Miss Pritt, the magnate's confidential secretary; and June Gayford, the fiancee Sir Robert refused to allow Frank to marry--are limited, and Magarschack (1899-1977) extends the story by repeatedly reshuffling his tiny deck, allowing them to cast suspicion on each other, provide unsought alibis, and reveal further information about the adventures of Frank's gun, which seems likely to have been the murder (or was it a suicide?) weapon. Inspector Beckett and his nominal superior, Superintendent Mooney, react to all these complications with commendably straight faces, presumably because they're saving their energy for the climactic car chase that rings down the curtain. Contrived, overlong, and seriously dated. Stick to the author's translations of Dostoevsky.

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