The Starvel Hollow Tragedy

One of Crofts's most highly praised works, which lives up to its reputation with ease. A miser and his servants are burnt to death in Yorkshire; despite the verdict of accident, murder is suggested by the fact that the bank notes, which should have perished in the fire, are still in circulation. French, disguised as an insurance investigator, travels north, and from there to France and Scotland. Despite a great deal of travelling, his plodding detection is genuinely interesting, and, although he only solves the crime a minute before he arrests the murderer, he comes across as more of a thinker than in later tales. The red herrings to which he applies his mind are as fresh as the writing and characterisation; and, although the reader will not be unduly surprised by the final revelation, he will marvel at the intricacy of a highly ingenious plot, with a nice bit of body-snatching for extra merit.

The novel opens in the old house of Starvel on a gloomy September afternoon in a remote part of Yorkshire. By Page 17 the house is burnt down, and by Page 20 the charred remains of its three inmates are discovered.An atmosphere of gloom and dreariness is maintained throughout this novel. The house fire is found to be the result of arson, the inmates to have been murdered, and a vast amount of money to have been stolen. By Page 46 Detective Inspector French takes over the case, and we follow his investigations thereafter. Renowned for his narrative and plot construction skills, even by 1927 when this his seventh mystery novel appeared, Crofts uses the resources of melodrama here rather than drawing on his expertise in engineering which he was later to utilize so brilliantly. We are given, however one glimpse of a 1920s railway train. "The huge engine with its high-pitched boiler and stumpy funnel rolled slowly past, followed by coach after coach, brightly lighted, luxurious, gliding smoothly by." More often encountered are dastardly murders, deadly rivalries, exhumations, and villains in disguise. Typical 1920s detection procedures are employed. Useful identifications are obtained from taxi drivers, and from bank tellers who record the numbers of bank notes of large denominations. Slowly but surely French has his man cornered and is ready to call "Check Mate" when something totally unexpected happens. Readers who enjoy sampling mysteries from the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction" should not overlook this one. As usual Crofts' plain but fluent story telling makes for easy reading. Each sentence dovetails perfectly into its neighbors, as is the way in good storytelling.