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A review by robinwalter
The Case of the April Fools by Christopher Bush
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
This was by a comfortable margin the most disappointing of the Ludovic Travers stories I've read. The ninth in the series and the sixth for me, it was a big letdown from the previous five. In the other five, Travers was a consulting detective and the stories were all about gathering of information and working out the mystery. One of the things I like best about those stories, which I've commented on in several of my reviews, is that the professional police were considered as peers and acted as would be expected of a professional police force. In his introduction to this Dean Street Press edition, Curtis Evans comments on this feature of the stories in these words:
"Unlike many other mystery writers during the Golden Age of detective fiction, Christopher Bush did not feel the need to aggrandize his amateur gentleman sleuth by depicting police detectives as dunderheads."
When I read those words in the introduction, I nodded because it was exactly what I'd noted in the earlier books. Sadly it was less fully accurate in describing the relationship between Travers and inspector Norris in this story. The earlier Travers mystery is that I'd read all featured as their Scotland Yard representative "The General" Wharton, and the relationship and interplay between Wharton and Travers was a highlight, true give-and-take and interactions between peers. Sadly, in this story the distinct impression is given that the only peers Travers cares about would be those who sit in the House of Lords.
This is by far the most brazenly classist of the Travers stories that I've read. Travers openly judges people on whether they are "the right sort of people" or not. An example of this is the description of someone definitely NOT of Travers' sort:
"When he smiled, the clear-cut face lost all its fineness and cheapened in a flash. When he spoke it was only too obvious that he didn’t exactly belong"
If Travers does consider them to be pukka, he cuts them enormous slack. He is completely relaxed about people of the right sort lying to him withholding information from him and getting him to do the same to inspector Norris.
This was a particularly egregious example: He says to someone of 'the right sort'
“You won’t mind my asking it, but you’re not thinking of going away? I mean, we’ve all got to stop here. It’s absolutely vital.”
Then after saying that, proceeds to not only let them go , but actively works to aid in hiding their 'getaway' from the police.
I actually got annoyed with him for the first time when, while he was witholding information from Norris and colluding in someone circumventing Norris's instructions as detailed above, Travers mildly chastised Norris for holding information from him
“You saw them at the Yard!” said Travers, really surprised. “You’ve been keeping that up your sleeve.”
The story could have been 25% shorter had the same sort of rigorous investigate procedures been followed as in some of the earlier books. Instead, we have Travers running the investigation and his overriding concern seems to be much less about solving the murders and much more about making sure that people of his class are treated as they should be. Sadly, inspector Norris goes along with this and lets Travers run the show while metaphorically tugging his forelock whenever his 'better' seems to expect it. Norris himself shows traces of the same extreme class-consciousness when he says of a butler
Mason doesn’t feed in the servants’ hall,
That made me cringe, since even Wimsey would have said that humans EAT, while livestock FEED.
I gave this story 3.5/5 because the actual solution to the two murders was interesting, satisfying and unexpected. Nevertheless, the transformation in Travers from an astute observer and analyst to a hands-on take charge investigator who makes Lord Peter Wimsey look like a raving Bolshevik was a big letdown.
Before I read any later books in the series, I'll be going back to read the ones preceding this ninth book, to enjoy the earlier version of Travers and his interactions with Wharton. If other later books in the series are more like this one I may not end up reading as many of the Travers series as I was planning to.
"Unlike many other mystery writers during the Golden Age of detective fiction, Christopher Bush did not feel the need to aggrandize his amateur gentleman sleuth by depicting police detectives as dunderheads."
When I read those words in the introduction, I nodded because it was exactly what I'd noted in the earlier books. Sadly it was less fully accurate in describing the relationship between Travers and inspector Norris in this story. The earlier Travers mystery is that I'd read all featured as their Scotland Yard representative "The General" Wharton, and the relationship and interplay between Wharton and Travers was a highlight, true give-and-take and interactions between peers. Sadly, in this story the distinct impression is given that the only peers Travers cares about would be those who sit in the House of Lords.
This is by far the most brazenly classist of the Travers stories that I've read. Travers openly judges people on whether they are "the right sort of people" or not. An example of this is the description of someone definitely NOT of Travers' sort:
"When he smiled, the clear-cut face lost all its fineness and cheapened in a flash. When he spoke it was only too obvious that he didn’t exactly belong"
If Travers does consider them to be pukka, he cuts them enormous slack. He is completely relaxed about people of the right sort lying to him withholding information from him and getting him to do the same to inspector Norris.
This was a particularly egregious example: He says to someone of 'the right sort'
“You won’t mind my asking it, but you’re not thinking of going away? I mean, we’ve all got to stop here. It’s absolutely vital.”
Then after saying that, proceeds to not only let them go , but actively works to aid in hiding their 'getaway' from the police.
I actually got annoyed with him for the first time when, while he was witholding information from Norris and colluding in someone circumventing Norris's instructions as detailed above, Travers mildly chastised Norris for holding information from him
“You saw them at the Yard!” said Travers, really surprised. “You’ve been keeping that up your sleeve.”
The story could have been 25% shorter had the same sort of rigorous investigate procedures been followed as in some of the earlier books. Instead, we have Travers running the investigation and his overriding concern seems to be much less about solving the murders and much more about making sure that people of his class are treated as they should be. Sadly, inspector Norris goes along with this and lets Travers run the show while metaphorically tugging his forelock whenever his 'better' seems to expect it. Norris himself shows traces of the same extreme class-consciousness when he says of a butler
Mason doesn’t feed in the servants’ hall,
That made me cringe, since even Wimsey would have said that humans EAT, while livestock FEED.
I gave this story 3.5/5 because the actual solution to the two murders was interesting, satisfying and unexpected. Nevertheless, the transformation in Travers from an astute observer and analyst to a hands-on take charge investigator who makes Lord Peter Wimsey look like a raving Bolshevik was a big letdown.
Before I read any later books in the series, I'll be going back to read the ones preceding this ninth book, to enjoy the earlier version of Travers and his interactions with Wharton. If other later books in the series are more like this one I may not end up reading as many of the Travers series as I was planning to.