Fielding, A - The Upfold Farm Mystery (1931)

Other reviewers have reflected on Fielding's love of complicated plots, replete with red herrings and misdirection and this, the twelfth book to feature her detective Chief Inspector Pointer, certainly goes some way to fitting the bill. Here the action takes place chiefly at the farm of the title, a haven for a small and motley collection of artistes – among them several painters, a musician and a writer – as well as the regular inhabitants and sundry hangers-on. When one of the inhabitants is found brutally murdered the local police, with the help of the detective writers' stock-in-trade the enthusiastic amateur, uncover a hotbed of professional and sexual jealousy amongst the residents. Also thrown into the mix are a mysterious box which appears and disappears without warning, blackmail and a complicated story of inheritance.

The sleuths go about their task methodically, without any real flashes of brilliance, and despite the clues afforded by another murder they find themselves unable to find any provable solution to the crimes. Therefore, as a last resort – and very late in the book – they appeal to Pointer for guidance. He is able to immediately deduce a possible solution and sets about attempting to uncover the evidence required to prove it.

This was the first Fielding I have read and, while I found enough in it to interest me all the way through, I found one particular aspect of the explanation sadly unconvincing. This rather spoilt for me what was up to then an appealing read, though some other readers may not have the same difficulty with Pointer's elucidation. However, despite the disappointment I felt in the last couple of pages I would certainly be interested in discovering any other books by this lesser-known writer of the golden age.

R E Faust

I finished this tonight and wanted to add my view on this book to what you posted last year. This is by far the best Fielding I have read. Setting benefits from NOT being the gentry milieu this author often favors, characters are thin, but sufficient (the roaring artist and the detective playlet author and narrator are well done), and plotting interesting. I'm sure I know to what "sadly unconvincing" part in Pointer's explanation you refer, but it's rather one of those pieces of Golden age baroque legerdemain you either accept or you don't!

I wish I could say other Fieldings measured up to this one, but I haven't found any that have. The early ones, praised by Van Dine, seem very subpar Crofts, while the middle and later ones seem mostly very subpar Christie. Yet Fielding remained one of Collins' house authors for years, so maybe there are some others I have missed that are worthwhile.

Curt