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The Four Defences

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 11 months ago

Connington, JJ - The Four Defences (1940)

 

Connington wrote two books about his series sleuth Mark Brand, The Counselor (1939) and The Four Defences (1940). Mark Brand is clearly an attempt by Connington to create a much friendlier and hipper detective than his other series sleuth, Sir Clinton Driffield. Mark Brand is a radio columnist, a very glamorous profession in that era, as well as a high tech one, something Connington clearly liked. Brand is humorous and witty, full of energy, and a loud dresser. Brand's conversation is full of literary quotes, in the tradition of E.C. Bentley and Dorothy L. Sayers. Brand is known as The Counselor, the title of his radio persona, who gives advice to his listeners.

 

The Four Defenses (1940) shows Connington's interest in science, both in the murder plot itself, and in the means of detection. Mark Brand employs an analytic chemist to study such clues as soil samples and paint. Connington explains such scientific analysis in fascinating detail. These sections recall the work of R. Austin Freeman. However, Connington stresses the recent nature of many of these methods of scientific analysis, and we do seem to be seeing approaches more modern than the somewhat Edwardian ones used in Freeman's earlier novels. The interest in "the disposal of the body" also seems Freeman like. There is a crypt scene somewhat recalling that in Freeman's [Dr. Thorndyke's Discovery] (1932).

 

Connington also shows how radio broadcasters can appeal to the public for information. These portions of the novel, mainly in the early chapters, show considerable ingenuity. The gambit of having radio broadcasters look into unsolved crimes popped up in such entertaining Hollywood pictures as George Sherman's Mystery Broadcast (1943).

 

The Four Defences is notable for the complexity of the plot. Every chapter unveils much new detail about the crimes. There is no padding: Connington has produced a Golden Age detective novel whose length is justified by the richness of the plot.

 

Mike Grost

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