White, Ethel Lina - She Faded Into Air (1941)

She Faded Into Air (1941) is an impossible crime detective novel in the Golden Age tradition, less suspense oriented and much more like traditional mystery fiction than several of her other works. Its impossible crime aspects use gimmicks so hoary that they are sometimes not even considered fair play any more. But her detectives have some charm. They are a young couple, and remind one of Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence. The man is a private detective, in the non-hard-boiled British mode, and the woman is an aspiring actress. Like Tuppence, she is a clergyman's daughter and a Bright Young Thing. Both are appealing members of the British middle class, and a bit poorer and harder working at their professions than Tommy and Tuppence ever were. The hero has the delightful name of Alan Foam. The first six chapters of the book contain the best characterization of the pair. Tommy and Tuppence also worked at being private detectives in Partners in Crime (1924).

Mike Grost

Ethel Lina White seems to have specialised in disappearing women. Like The Wheel Spins, this book focuses on a mysterious disappearance. Unlike its predecessor, however, it gets off to a rapid start, when an American socialite apparently walks into the only entrance of a London flat, in front of two witnesses, and fails to emerge. The flat is torn apart, but no girl and no mysteries are discovered. A private investigator is called in and falls in love with one of the residents, but fails to solve the mystery or to prevent three deaths.

Unfortunately, despite its rapid start and the amount of carnage, the book suffers like its predecessor from an oversupply of emotion and a shortage of investigative activity. The police are kept out for most of the story, and the investigator is hamstrung when the client takes him off the case. There is little for him or the reader to do but await developments. Alas, when these come they reveal that the plot is of the wildly over-elaborate kind which depends on the villains doing exactly the right thing and the heroes exactly the wrong thing throughout. John Dickson Carr would have had fun unravelling such a plan; but the only thing that unravels here is the book's credibility.

I had this book pegged as a worthy first attempt from the 1920s by a rank beginner: it came as a surprise to find that White was 65 and near the end of a long career when it was published. Some of the character sketches are good and the sense of lurking horror is well-done, but much of the phraseology is stilted, there are far too many had-I-but knowns, and at times White simply deceives the reader.

For collectors only.

Jon.

She Faded Into Air should soon be available from Gutenberg Australia.