Fielding, A -- Death of John Tait (1932)

The Queen of Red Herrings is back. elaborating what seems at first like a simple domestic dispute into an elaborate story of betrayal, toxicology, blackmail, impersonation, abduction and sinister foreigners. John Tait is a middle-aged Lothario (in a mild English way) who has already jilted two women -- the cold Lady Ida and his cousin-by-marriage Etta Naylor -- when he becomes engaged to a widow, Mrs Burnham. As John's wealthy stepmother, Lady Tait, dotes on him to the degree of disinheriting her own nieces and nephews, the prospect of his having an heir puts the family's backs up, and by page ten Etta and the other cousins are already discussing murder.

For anyone else this would be quite enough plot to go on with, but Fielding is only warming up. Soon we encounter a glamorous adventuress, a gigolo who works in a chemist's shop, a suicide that looks like a murder, an Arabian fortune-teller, Lady Tait's disinherited and dubious grandson, his fiery Italian mother, an actor with broken fingernails, a unique method of poisoning, a Poison Unknown to Science (but not to Dr Angelli, who luckily happens to be on hand to identify it), a secretly confined lunatic, a dashing explorer, a chewed fountain-pen top, and a brilliant detective called Superintendent Pointer who can identify who chewed it simply by looking at the culprit. There is even a twist at the end, as if there were anything left to twist.

There is a good deal of naive charm about Fielding's insistence that her readers should get value for their money. The best thing about this book, in fact, is the way Pointer plods amiably through this whole hysterical gallimaufry -- even into extreme personal danger -- without batting an eyelid. To see him at work one would think cases like this came across his desk every day. They don't make detectives like that any more.

Jon.