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I\u2019ll bellyache about my developing self-exile<\/strong> from all popular culture in another post. Suffice it to say, just now, that I\u2019m thinking about trying to find good mystery stories from the past to read. In that spirit, I bought E. C. Bentley\u2019s Trent\u2019s Last Case<\/a><\/em>, one of the groundbreaking novels in the genre.<\/p>\n Edmund Clerihew Bentley has the distinction, not only of being the author of some seminal mysteries, but of inventing a form of light verse, a sort of short-cut limerick called the Clerihew. Here\u2019s one of the more successful ones:<\/p>\n \u201cThe mustache on Hitler On top of that he was a childhood schoolfellow and lifelong friend of G. K. Chesterton. So he comes highly recommended.<\/p>\n His novel, Trent\u2019s Last Case<\/em>, published in 1913, stars Philip Trent, a young artist who doubles as a crime reporter for a London newspaper. He is sent to a country estate in the wake of the murder of its owner, a predatory American financier. Faced with a confusing scenario \u2013 why was the victim dressed in mismatched clothes, and missing his false teeth? \u2013 he finally comes to a conclusion about whodunnit \u2013 which he suppresses for private reasons. But that\u2019s only half the book. The second part involves a series of further revelations that confound all his conclusions.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a clever book, in the English tradition (later established in the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”) of the \u201ccozy\u201d puzzle mystery. But honestly, it\u2019s all a little too clever for me. In order to fool the reader, the author (it seems to me) pushes and crosses the bounds of plausibility. He works hard to make it all seem consistent with real human nature, but he does not entirely succeed \u2013 in my view.<\/p>\n Also, the prose style somewhat irritated me. Granted the author lived before Hemingway, but when he gives us a short biography of each major character on their first appearance in the story, rather than showing us what they\u2019re like through their words and actions, it seems like lazy writing to me. I mean, Conan Doyle was considerably older than Bentley, but he knew how to reveal a character.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t condemn Trent\u2019s Last Case<\/em> \u2013 it\u2019s an acknowledged classic. But for me it didn\u2019t work very well. Your mileage will likely vary.<\/p>\n On the bright side, no content cautions at all are necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ll bellyache about my developing self-exile from all popular culture in another post. Suffice it to say, just now, that I\u2019m thinking about trying to find good mystery stories from the past to read. In that spirit, I bought E. C. Bentley\u2019s Trent\u2019s Last Case, one of the groundbreaking novels in the genre. Edmund Clerihew … Continue reading ‘Trent’s Last Case,’ by E. C. Bentley<\/span>
\nCould hardly be littler,\u201d
\nWas the thought that kept recurring
\nTo Field Marshall Goehring.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n