Review by Nick Fuller
3/5
Crofts’s favourite, but not his best. It gets off to a flying start with French’s investigations into the disappearance of Magill in the vicinity of Whitehead, the discovery of his corpse, and the stripping away of the preliminary levels of the plot. Halfway through, though, the rattling pace comes to a grinding halt, and is replaced by a steady, if steadily unexciting, walking pace. It cannot be said that French does much reasoning: there is much inquiry into the movements of trains and boats (too mathematical for the lay reader), but his detection consists largely of interviewing witness after witness and letting them solve the puzzle for him. The reader is more fortunate, for the solution is obvious from the start. Since the sleeping draught is given on Wednesday and much attention is paid to the details of Wednesday night, it is quite obvious that the Thursday night business was faked. The solution is over-complicated, and the mass conspiracy to murder one man seems a case of overkill. How superior is Five Red Herrings!
I recently reread this title, with enjoyment. I'm not the biggest fan of rigorous alibi checking, but there is loads of it here; and there's something mesmerizing about it all. Crofts focuses like a laser beam on the problem, the disappearance of Sir John Magill, with no deplorable distractions like love interest, gangs or trips to France. French has an enjoyable investigative partner in a North Ireland cop, and the whole thing is quite fun, with a masterful demonstration near the end. Clearly this work inspired Sayers' own fine alibi novel, Five Red Herrings, which shares a similar setting and mechanics. Not to everyone's tastes in these degenerate days, but in its own day SJMLJ was highly esteemed, and I think justifiably so.
Curt