Mysteries Ahoy!

Having selected The Servant of Death as my most recent Book of the Month I was keen to return to Wallis as quickly as I could. Given that his books are out of print and owned by relatively few libraries in the United States, this proved a little more challenging than I had hoped but I managed to track down a copy of his first mystery novel, Murder by Formula.

While the title may have you expecting a case of poisoning, the formula referred to in the title is actually a somewhat fourth wall-bending reference to the conventions and tropes of mystery fiction. Right before the murder takes place, the victim engages in a conversation in which they all discuss the common plot elements, devices and tropes that they think make for a good crime story. One of these is that the crime should take place by the end of the second chapter. Wallis obliges almost immediately and within a few paragraphs our victim has been murdered.

That victim is Andrew Wingdon, a celebrated writer who is a member of his club’s Arts Committee. The group meets to discuss a proposed theme for a new exhibition but following a fine dinner they sit in The Asylum – a large and dimly lit room which is housing a collection of medieval weaponry. The group share their opinions of mystery fiction and the most enthusiastic of them describes how he would murder someone in that very room. Wingdon is found the next morning, seemingly killed in exactly that way.

On the case is the enthusiastic young Inspector Jacks, a college graduate who joined the Police hoping that he would be able to become one of the leading men of his field. He seems reasonably smart and does a decent job following his leads, even if he does seem to write off two possible candidates for murderer far too quickly. I was pleased that he is at least challenged on this later in the novel and he does at least give a decent reason for why he had opted not to investigate one of those two characters. His failure to look into the other, the widow of the victim, is much harder to accept and she quickly becomes a (strikingly inappropriate) romantic interest for him.

Wallis’ story unfolds at a steady pace with several further attempted murders but while this should retain the reader’s interest, none of these developments are particularly shocking or outrageous. In fact, those who were paying close attention to the discussion in The Asylum should be pretty clear about who the second victim will turn out to be.

The second killing does spin the investigation off into a more interesting direction and while I had little difficulty in figuring out the solution, I did enjoy the process of getting there. The only review I have read of this at Mystery*File implies that the mystery does not play fair which I do not entirely agree with, though it would be accurate to say that some of the most critical evidence is kept back until very late in the story.

I think it would be fair to say that Murder by Formula is hardly a classic in the field of detective fiction but it is a solid, entertaining read. If you can stomach the holes in the investigator’s approach and some slightly pulpy storytelling developments, it has some fun moments. It is nowhere near the quality of The Servant of Death though and if you are able to track down either of these I’d strongly suggest starting with that later title.

Vintage Mysteries Challenge: A Journalist/Writer (Who)