Rhode, John - Dead Men at the Folly (1932)

Some reviewers have occasionally criticized John Rhode for the perceived poor quality of his writing. Lack of any real characterization, stodgy prose and reliance on stereotypes have been among the accusations levelled at him – who can forget, for example, Julian Symons's withering appraisal in Bloody Murder of the so-called `humdrums', which to Symons included writers like Crofts, Freeman and Connington as well as Rhode/Burton? Fortunately, these days the sustained demand for second-hand copies of his books has led to something of a reappraisal of his work amongst readers of detective fiction, as well it should. This reviewer should perhaps declare a bias since I totally reject Symons's assessment of the golden age – and might add with relish the fact that the aforementioned writers' work is still much in demand and rising in value all the time, while Symons himself does not seem to be held in such high regard.

Be that as it may, whatever the truth about his characterization and prose style, no-one who has read this book could accuse Rhode of being unable to create atmosphere, which he does wonderfully at the beginning of this, his thirteenth Priestley novel. It opens on a dark winter's night, where a motor-cyclist, who has lost his way whilst travelling to visit friends for the Christmas holidays, stumbles on the dead body of a man at the foot of a tall folly situated in a clearing in the woods. Superintendent Hanslet, that stalwart of the early Rhode books, is called in to aid the local police and soon he finds himself investigating a spate of local robberies, a runaway wife and a car that seems to be able to disappear almost magically. Hanslet soon believes he has a theory to explain these events and confidently declares the case solved to Priestley, whose interest is therefore extinguished. But the discovery of another victim in exactly the same place wrecks Hanslet's hypothesis and Priestley as usual comes to his friends rescue with the solution.

This early Rhode may not contain his very best mystery plot – the identity of the criminal(s) and even the solution to how the car can appear and disappear may be deductible to the attentive reader as it was to this reviewer – but this is another excellent book from the era when Priestley was still active in his investigations. The only aspect that marred my enjoyment was the absence of a map, which would have made it easier to understand the relationship between the various places mentioned in the local area.

RE Faust

Landscape

Dead Men at the Folly (1932) is an inventive mystery, with one of Rhode's settings in an imagined rural landscape. Such imaginary landscapes are among the best features of Rhode's work. This one also has some imaginary architecture: the Folly of the title.

The opening of The Milk-Churn Murder has a topography that recalls Rhode's previous Dead Men at the Folly. Both stories take place on an old, now-bypassed road, that has had most of its traffic diverted to a new, modern roadway. Both novels have a railway, and a railroad repair crew out at the time of the murder. Both novels are set in a rural area in the West of England. Both novels also mention Exeter in Devon as a possible destination for their characters, but neither is set there.

Robbery

Dead Men at the Folly is rich in mystery puzzles. The best of these have to do not with the murder, but with a robbery subplot. The robbery subplot has three puzzles, all nicely done: who is committing the robberies, how they are getting their information about the victims, and how a car involved with the robberies keeps disappearing.

Rhode's sleuths also come up with a preliminary solution to two of the robbery puzzles (whodunit, and how they got their inside information on the victims). This solution turns out to be incorrect and different from the true solution at the end. But it too shows ingenuity. Such multiple solutions are commendable.

Murder Mystery

Both of the first two murders have howdunit features. The second murder is especially interesting in its causes and mechanisms. It anticipates the killing in Death Leaves No Card, although it has differences too.

Dead Men at the Folly introduces doubles, with two characters who look almost exactly alike. Rhode employs this in a mystery twist that is decent enough, but far from outstanding. The doubles aspect is just one feature in a book filled with plot ideas.

Relationships

The biggest weakness of Dead Men at the Folly is that the book sags in the middle. We get a long, uncreative digression into the romantic problems of the first victim. The book also seems unfortunately uncritical of a man's dubious claim that he has a right to beat up any man he catches cheating with his wife. Another problem: both the London scenes and the more upper middle class characters in these sections are duller than the rural landscape and its working class residents.

I like the young guy who discovers the body (Chapters 1, 2). He disappears from the story after this, unfortunately: if they made a movie of Dead Men at the Folly, one suspects his role would be expanded. He is riding that favorite form of transportation of the Realist School, a motorcycle. He works for a company involved in trade with Lithuania: trade with Eastern Europe being a recurring theme in Freeman Wills Crofts and Rhode.

Mike Grost