Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by hannahstohelit
Mr. Fortune's Practice by H.C. Bailey
medium-paced
4.25
Now we're getting somewhere! Still not quite at Peak Fortune, but we're getting closer than in Call Mr Fortune. I'm never quite sure what I think of the point of Joan being, but actually rereading all these in order I get it a bit more- introducing her and no other love interest, and having them settle down quite quickly, allows him to transition from "classic bachelor detective" to something a bit different. He's by no means the only "classic bachelor detective" to marry (though he may well be one of the earliest to do so, I'm not expert enough in the genre to know), but his marriage is less about his wife per se (and in most stories she's in the background just enough that we know she's there) and more about a softening yet sharpening of his character. Beyond this point is where a darkness develops to the stories that is best appreciated when Fortune is seen as someone who has an aloof and eccentric exterior but is capable of deep feeling and emotion, especially related to children. While I don't believe Bailey ever writes him to have any children of his own, and Fortune wouldn't have actually needed to be married to have the effect he later does in The Little House or The Yellow Slugs, I think that him being engaged to Joan in The Unknown Murderer does add something, and that added something contributes to later stories like those as well.
But as far as the stories in this collection... some are still kind of conventional, some are more fun than in the previous collection, and honestly it was refreshing that a few of them weren't really particularly criminal in the end- very early-Holmesian. There's an inextricable bum note of racism in The Ascot Tragedy, but The Young Doctor has a darkness that presages what's to come (as does The Unknown Murderer, though I think the ending is very underdeveloped) and The Magic Stone uses a device from the earlier The Hottentot Venus but in a story that is less cloyingly strange. Overall, a better collection that sets the stage for further developments.
But as far as the stories in this collection... some are still kind of conventional, some are more fun than in the previous collection, and honestly it was refreshing that a few of them weren't really particularly criminal in the end- very early-Holmesian. There's an inextricable bum note of racism in The Ascot Tragedy, but The Young Doctor has a darkness that presages what's to come (as does The Unknown Murderer, though I think the ending is very underdeveloped) and The Magic Stone uses a device from the earlier The Hottentot Venus but in a story that is less cloyingly strange. Overall, a better collection that sets the stage for further developments.