Cannan, Joanna - And Be A Villain (1958)

Rex Stout also wrote a story with this title -- see below

Laura Langley, newly widowed and left impoverished, visits her daughter, Eve Hallow, in the midlands town of Beetham. Laura is expecting to come and live with Eve, but Eve's husband Richard, Dr Hallow, plans to put her into an old-people's home. Even Laura's other daughter Primrose is prepared to go along with this plan. Before they can tell her, Richard is found murdered in his surgery. As, apart from being an inveterate womaniser, Richard is a highly incompetent Doctor who wilfully neglects his non-private patients, there should be no shortage of suspects. Unfortunately Superintendent Ronald Price and his assistant Sergeant Cyril Haddock (sic) are called in from Scotland Yard and proceed to make a complete hash of the case. It is left to Laura to discover the truth.

As appears to be generally the case with these late Cannans the mystery plot here is a peg in which the author can hang her peculiar sociological and political observations. In a way this is unfortunate as the initial situation is vividly painted and would certainly make the basis for an interesting plot. On the other hand, Cannan's observation are both so peculiar and so well-written, in this book at least, that they provide plenty of interest to sustain the reader who enjoys odd sociological and political observations.

One of the outstanding features is the appearance of a positive gay character, Laura's nephew Jonathan, who has previously been jailed for homosexuality (and it is always good to reminded that a mere 50 years ago gay men were jailed) and now lives in France. His generosity and warmth are placed in sharp contrast to Laura's daughters. I wonder if this is the first positive gay character (openly gay that is) in British mystery fiction? However, it is necessary to speedily correct any notion that Cannan's political stance therefore belongs to the Left (as regular readers will well know). Indeed part of the fascination is trying to establish exactly what that stance is (it is worth saying that in this case this is wholly justifiable given that, as previously remarked, so much of her books are concerned with political and sociological observation). Ronald Price is her hate figure and, in this book, Laura the character whom one may assumes speaks for Cannan herself (although one would hope that her famous daughters -- the various Pullein-Thompsons -- did not exhibit the characteristics of the fictional Eve and Primrose). Price is, by his own estimation (and Cannan's), a Socialist -- what this appears to mean for her is that he enthusiastically embraces modern (1950's) developments. There is appalling snobbery on all sides in this book and Cannan has great fun with the impact of Nancy Mitford; Price is trying desperately to be U (for he is a snob himself as well as a Socialist). Basically Cannan's position is a kind of romantic conservatism; what she is against is modern life and anyone who has any pretensions. The middle classes are therefore especially abhorred. The working class with their hideous accents are alright as long as they accept their lot in life and doff their caps. The only really acceptable types are the squirearchy, and especially anyone who rides (she is after all the doyenne of the pony story!). But Cannan is realistic enough to recognise that they are dying out. So the only real solution - which Laura embraces in the end -- is to leave hideous England altogether and settle with gay Jonathan in his decayed chateau in France, there to cultivate her garden.

In its own peculiar way this is a fascinating book. One might end with a final observation -- Christie is often denoted by lazy observers as a conservative writer; to do so without specifying what is meant by this is twaddle, and reading Cannan, who is avowedly conservative yet as far in some respects from Christie as it is possible to be, demonstrates this with great clarity.

Nick Hay.

Stout, Rex -- And Be a Villain (1948)

Selected as one of Stout's four best detective novels by Barzun and Taylor, And Be a Villain is also significant as the first novel in the Zeck trilogy, where Nero Wolfe faces off against a Moriartyish Napoleon of Crime by the name of Zeck. Maybe the Zeck trilogy was more exciting at the time (though Anthony Boucher hated it), but we all know today that Wolfe and Archie survive the confrontation; so for me the primary interest of And Be a Villain was the murder puzzle. Fortunately the Zeck part is very small, amounting to only a few scattered pages, and the puzzle is good. A reader who gives some thought to Wolfe's (and Stout's) predilections and the title itself will have some advantage in guessing the solution of the mystery, but it can be legitimately deduced as well.

It's perhaps not the most fiendishly clever puzzle in the genre, but it is a nicely turned out one, enjoyable to follow. Poison, often creatively employed by Stout, is the primary means of murder. The setting revolves around a forties radio show, where one of the guests is poisoned from a fatal sip of a sponsor's carbonated drink (Hi-Spot). This setting gives Stout a chance to amusingly portray the gourmand Wolfe railing against modern mass produced food and drink (besides Hi-Spot, there are also dreadful things called Sweeties and Meltettes). The characters are sufficiently memorable, with a stand-out being a forties bobby-soxer and radio fan club president whose slang Archie has a lot of fun detailing.

A fine book, definitely one of Stout's best in my view.

Curt Evans

See also: http://at-scene-of-crime.blogspot.ca/2012/04/enter-arnold-zeck.html