The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley by Louis Tracy
Publication: ebook, 686 pages in iPod Touch, originally published 1919 (not 1915 like MB.net says)
Genre: Mystery/Detective
Rating: 3.5/5
Find ebook @ ManyBooks.net
What a fun book! I’m glad I downloaded this, because I had a wonderful time reading it. It’s lighthearted enough that it kept my spirits up as I come to the end of a boring intersession class, plus it has engaging characters and an easy, comfortable plot.
Copying the summary published in the New York Times, March 21, 1920 (it’s better than anything I could come up with right now):
When John Trenholme, artist, accepted a welcome commission from a magazine editor to journey down to a certain old Hertfordshire village and make a series of sketches of its imperiled beauties, he looked forward to nothing more exciting than an agreeable, wholly peaceful little expedition. Certainly he did not in the least expect to get mixed up with a murder, and to find himself one of the most important witnesses in “The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley.”
The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley takes place in just one day, but it certainly packs a lot into it. There’s murder, and intrigue, multiple meals, a detective like looks like a French comedian and another detective with a head shaped like a bullet (a description which, by the way, was used in N or M? to describe Germans). The detectives in this mystery are actually Scotland Yard people, which is nice to see after reading about so many amateur detectives.
Detective Inspector Charles Furneaux, aka the “Little ‘Un,” and Superintendent James Winter, aka the “Big ‘Un,” are two rather brilliant detectives who are well-known for their brilliance and as a bonus, work really well together. They have a comfortable partnership that’s full of teasing and gentle insults. From the get-go I knew they’d get their man (it’s always a man, isn’t it), mostly because of this sentence:
More than one eminent scoundrel had either blown out his brains or given himself up to the law when he knew that the Big ‘Un and Little ‘Un of the Yard were hot on his track.
Wow! That’s certainly a powerful statement, eh? Makes them seem almost vicious, but they aren’t, really.
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