Hello, I feel as if I have neglected this blog a little this week. I have simply been very busy and over-tired. I haven’t read as much as usual so far during July and I am finding that frustrating, I am fighting a constant battle with wanting to read but being almost too tired to manage more than a few pages. Having failed to get beyond about page 80 with my previous read, I opted for something altogether different. When times are tough, I reach for a Golden Age crime style novel, and the wonderful British Library Crime Classics came to my aid with The Hog’s Back Mystery.
This is the first mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts, that I’ve read, a prolific writer I wasn’t even aware of before. The Hog’s Back Mystery was his fourteenth novel, the fifth featuring his well-known policeman Inspector French.
Freeman Wills Crofts, was a railway engineer who began writing in 1919 during a long illness. Hi first novel The Cask was published in 1920 and he followed it up with almost one book every year for the next thirty-seven years. As well as mystery novels, Freeman Wills Crofts published short story collections and both stage and radio plays. In his introduction to this edition, crime writer Martin Edwards, describes The Hog’s Back Mystery as the work of a skilled craftsman at the height of his powers.
“A short curving drive brought them to the house, a typical modern South of England cottage, with lower walls of purple brick, upper storey and roof of ‘antique’ red tiles and steel-framed casement windows. In front and at both sides the trees had been cleared back to leave room for a small garden. All round was the wood.”
The Hog’s Back Mystery is set near the Hog’s Back, a ridge in the North Downs of the Surrey countryside. Dr James Earle and his wife Julia live in a particularly secluded spot, in their cottage St Kilda. As the novel opens, Julia Earle and her sister Marjorie – who is visiting – are meeting Ursula Stone, an old friend from schooldays, off the train. The three women are all somewhere between thirty-five and forty, but Julie’s husband who she only married a few years earlier, is already sixty and semi-retired from his practice. Ursula immediately senses that the Earle marriage is not as happy as it could be. It becomes obvious that Julie is very friendly with a neighbour Reggie Slade – a man residing with relatives, whose only real talent seems to be his knowledge of horses. Already feeling a little unsettled with the atmosphere at St Kilda, Ursula is further convinced that things are far from right when she is obliged to go up to London for the day. Having clearly heard Dr Earle announce his intention of playing golf at the links near Guildford, Ursula is therefore surprised to see him sitting in a car with an unknown woman in a London street.
“Slowly the hours of that day dragged away without bringing to light the slightest information about the missing man. Earle had utterly and completely vanished – vanished instantaneously. At one moment seated in his chair, settled down for the evening, entirely normal, dressed for the house: three minutes later, gone. Neither sight nor sound of his going: no trace left: no hint either of cause or method: no suggestion of motive: no explanation anywhere of any part of it. Spirited away!”
Three days later, on a seemingly normal Sunday evening, while Ursula is visiting some other friends a few miles away, Dr Earle disappears from his sitting room, while Julia and her sister are clearing away the supper things. An extensive search is carried out, but it appears as if Dr Earle was only wearing his slippers, had no coat with him, and had been in the middle of reading the Observer. By the end of the night the police have been called, and Inspector French of the Yard is soon on the case.
French is faced with trying to discover whether the case is a domestic one of deliberate disappearance or something much more sinister. The case is further complicated by two further disappearances, at least one of which French is convinced is a murder. Yet, if all three people have really been murdered what can the motive possibly be?
I found this novel deeply engaging, it’s ingeniously plotted and the solution is fiendishly difficult to work out – I wonder if anyone actually ever does. Unusually, Freeman Wills Crofts satisfies the armchair detective by providing; in the final chapter where French sets out his evidence – the page numbers where the clues could have been spotted. Although the character development is not as strong as some other mystery writers of this period – Freeman Wills Crofts writes a very compelling mystery, which I couldn’t help but enjoy enormously.
Oh, this sounds great – just the ticket as a wind-down read. I shall be adding it to my wishlist forthwith.
It was, and I appear to have invested in another book by Freeman Wills Crofts too.
That sounds perfect end-of-term reading, and how fabulous to have the page numbers given in the round-up at the end, I’ve never heard of that. Hopefully you will have a lovely summer of reading now!
Yes looking forward to having more time for everything.
This sounds briliant and fortunately I have a copy waiting in the wings! I read a lot of Freeman Wills Crofts back in the day and remember loving it so it will be nice to go back to him. Onward to holiday reading! 🙂
He was very prolific so I’m sure I will read more from him.
I love the sound of this, and will keep a keen eye out for this and his other novels. I’d better keep a written note of his name though,
otherwise I’ll be scanning the secondhand bookshops of West Wales for books by Freeman Hardy Willis!
Ha ha! 😁 yes his name reminds me of that company too.
It’s strange Ali, since that distressing referendum and its even more distressing result, plus the various other results happening on seeming possible on the world stage, I have been in an emotional slump, rather toiling through exhaustedly – and several friends are reporting similar. So……that has affected my reading too. I lack the interest and energy to pursue the brilliant demanding read, but have a short fuse for anything which isn’t brilliant. So have started and abandoned many books and have not read that much which will make it onto the blog. And what I have read and will recommend is so very far in advance of publication that it won’t appear on the blog for months.
Ah well
I love the idea of the missed clues guidance – very clever and satisfying I would have thought
I think you’re right about all that awful referendum stuff and other news of recent days – it has affected my mood on many occasions. My holidays started today so maybe I can get some good reading in now – and ignore the rest of the world. 🙂
Ooh this does sound the perfect antidote to the reading blues. what a clever idea to provide the solution at the back for idiots like me who miss every clue going in a mystery novel and always pick the wrong villain.
Yes it was a clever idea, I sometimes ‘guess’ correctly – but only because it has to be one or more of the characters and so sometimes I guess right but I never know why or how.
My biggest mystery with Freeman Wills Croft is where I can find some of his books at a reasonable price. 😦 I’d love to read this one – thank you for the synopsis and your comments.
Well I can’t answer that one, not sure if the BL crime classics are available worldwide or not – I know they are not too dear over here.
Sounds like a fun book to read. I really like the writer’s idea to give the page numbers where the telling clues can be found.
Yes such an unusual idea but one many mystery readers will enjoy.
A lovely example of what a wonderful thing ‘the right book at the right time’ is – I’m definitely inspired to pick up my copy.
It was perfect . Hope you enjoy it too Jane.
[…] would think to buy me a few to beautify my bookshelves but no such luck. A recent post over on HeavenAli about The Hog’s Back Mystery – which sounded wonderful – reminded me that […]
[…] get past page 80. Golden Age crime I find are great when I am tired and busy – and I had The Hog’s Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts on my summer pile which suited my mood perfectly, my first mystery by that […]
[…] Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts which is set deep in the English countryside. You can see Ali’s review here and why I’m keen to read […]
[…] this one is probably my favourite to date. I had read one Freeman Wills Crofts mystery before – The Hogs Back Mystery – which is really good, but in my opinion The 12.30 from Croydon is far […]
[…] I read this book: I learned of this book via Ali at HeavenAli (her review is here) and she kindly donated her copy to me. I added it to my #20booksofsummer reading list for 2017. It […]
[…] Back…” has also been loved and reviewed by BookerTalk and HeavenAli, and so you might want to pop over and have a look at their […]
[…] of this book by other bloggers: here, here, […]
[…] HEAVENALI […]