Connington, JJ - Commonsense Is All You Need (1947)

Review by Nick Fuller

2/5

Connington’s last novel is unfortunately devoid of merit, for, as well as being so slow-moving that it is an uphill struggle to remain interested, the work is marred by considerable contradictions and carelessness (e.g., Dr. Goldsmith is told of Tibberton’s death in an air-raid twice), and by a painfully obvious plot. A librarian named Pickford is found hanging in his garage, apparently a suicide — but Professor Dundas, relying on Goddefroy’s method, proves murder. Was Pickford’s unhappy marriage the motive for the murder? Or is the motive one of two possible treasures: the Treasure of Abbot St. Rule’s, supposed to have been buried at the time of the Visitation of the Monasteries; or a possible manuscript? It should not take much intelligence to suspect that the Abbot’s Treasure is a red herring. Nor does it take much more intelligence, in a book with Shakespearean scholarship at its core, to work out what — in a chapter composed entirely of Cockney apostrophes — “code Hicks,” “anathewe,” “Testament” and “hundred thousand” could possibly mean. While everybody in the book (obviously suffering from monstrous stupidity) believes it refers to an individual named Hicks, the intelligent reader should work out what it is really referring to as soon as it is mentioned. The murder of the chief suspect and a spot of blackmail do not help. Driffield only appears (and is first mentioned) on page 131, and dully detects; Wendover appears in the first two chapters and is then forgotten about until the entry of Sir Clinton; and most of the detection is done by the unlikeable and inconsistently characterised Inspector Loxton. The murderer’s identity is as obvious as the motive. In short, a slow and painfully obvious tale unworthy of its author.