"The Crystal Beads Murder"

The Dean Street Press, a small British publishing house, has been bringing back the work of several Golden Age authors who have mostly been forgotten today. The latest writer to be rescued from obscurity is Annie Haynes, the author of a dozen mystery novels. Annie Haynes died in 1929 and her last novel – The Crystal Beads Murder – was published in 1930. Only three of her novels were ever published in the United States, and all of her books quickly disappeared after her death. Obviously, the publisher believes her work deserves a closer look - and I must say I agree. The Crystal Beads Murder is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here. The publisher provided me with a copy of The Crystal Beads Murder for this review.

Young Anne Courtenay is happily engaged to be married to a horse trainer, Michael Burford. But Anne’s brother Harold bets all of his money – and then some – on a racing tip. The horse, of course, loses, and Harold, now deeply in debt to a despicable character named William Saunderson, faces ruin unless Anne agrees to marry Saunderson. The next thing we know, Saunderson is found shot to death. The police have a rich field of suspects; Saunderson, it appears, was a blackmailer and general debaucher. Detective Inspector William Stoddart and Alfred Harbord, his assistant, find themselves with far too many leads and clues, most of which point to dead ends. And then, in the corpse’s pocket, they discover those peculiar beads, broken off a longer chain or necklace – and apparently put in Saunderson's pocket after his death. Those beads will eventually prove critical in determining the truth about what really happened – but only after another murder.

It's a bit disappointing that much of the detection in The Crystal Beads Murder relies on coincidence, rather than on finding and interpreting hidden clues. We get – more than once – passages that try to prepare us to accept odd but fortunate coincidences; “who is to say,” the author asks at one point, “how far we can exercise free will, and how far we are puppets of an arbitrary fate?” All the same, this is an entertaining read, with interesting characters, and I think you would enjoy it.

Annie Haynes had only completed half the book when she died. The book was finished by another author who remains anonymous - though historian Curtis Evans, who provided an introduction to this edition, seems to think the most likely person to have finished the book may have been Lucy Beatrice Malleson, who wrote fine mysteries under the pen name Anthony Gilbert. It’s a fascinating side-quest here, and adds to my interest in the book. I look forward to reading more of Haynes's earlier books.