Looking back at popular mystery series that were being read in the mid-twentieth century, it's worth noting that there seem to have been a fair number of them involving husband-and-wife amateur detective teams. For the most part, these novels were American, often set in New York. But there were a couple of series involving married couples set in the U.K. Even Agatha Christie got into the act with Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. But one forgotten writer of pleasantly lightweight (for the most part) comedy-mysteries is, I think, due for revival by some keen-eyed publisher, and that writer is Delano Ames. His series, set in London, featured the husband-and-wife team of Jane and Dagobert Brown. Here's my review of one of the early entries in that series, She Shall Have Murder. As usual, it's been slightly edited.
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Life must have been pretty dull for a young woman doing office work in a lawyer’s office in London back in 1948. That might explain why Jane Hamish decided to try her hand at writing a book. Her boyfriend, Dagobert Brown – unemployed – liked the idea and encouraged her to start writing a thriller. They both got an unexpected thrill, though, when one of the law firm’s clients turned up murdered. It happens in She Shall Have Murder, by Delano Ames.
The author has been mostly forgotten, but his books about Dagobert and Jane Brown were extremely popular. The couple made their first appearance in 1948 in She Shall Have Murder, which takes place before Dagobert and Jane were married.
Jane works in the office of a London law firm. As with most law firms, it has its share of difficult clients. One of those clients, a Mrs. Robjohn, who believes that she is being spied upon and followed, is found dead one morning, the apparent victim of an accident involving a gas line. The police – and almost everyone else – are satisfied with the verdict of accidental death.
Jane’s boyfriend, Dagobert, however, is suspicious. And he is soon able to prove – to his and Jane’s satisfaction, at least – that the old woman must have been murdered. We are never told exactly why the evidence did not make the police suspicious, but this IS a mystery novel, after all, and the fictional detectives have to be given some leeway.
At any rate, Jane and Dagobert set out to investigate further. I should mention that Dagobert is unemployed – which, at this point in his life, appears to be a chronic condition – and he is quite happy to have the amateur detective work to fill up his time.
There are a fair number of possible suspects, most of them connected in one way or another with the law firm. There is the senior partner, Mr. Playfair, who is given to the occasional cryptic warning about people who fail to mind their own business. There is the junior partner, Major James Stewart – and, since this was 1948, and the American actor of the same name was tremendously popular, Major Stewart is generally called “Jimmy Stewart.” There are the other young women who work in the office. There is a blackmailing office boy with virtually no redeeming qualities. There is a concert pianist who turns out to have had an affair with the murdered woman.
If I haven’t made it clear by now, this is a very light comedy-mystery. In its use of a detective couple, Jane and Dagobert undoubtedly will awaken memories of some of the American detective couples so popular at the time – couples such as Nick and Nora Charles, Pam and Jerry North and Jeff and Haila Troy. But there were few such couples working together in Britain – one obvious exception being Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence Beresford.
In any case, Jane and Dagobert continue with their independent investigation – for, as I said, the police don’t think that there was a murder. There was, of course, and there will be a second one before Dagobert comes up with the solution.
And despite the light comic touches, this is still a fairly well put-together mystery. The characters, I think, are less than fully developed or fully believable; no lawyer could ever be as easily distracted as Mr. Playfair seems to be, for example, and still keep his clients satisfied. We really aren’t given all the clues that Dagobert and Jane see in time to make a fair guess at what happened before the final explanation; perhaps that’s due in part to the need for one narrator – Jane – who doesn’t always know exactly what her partner is up to.
But, to at least some degree, I’m quibbling here. Jane and Dagobert are on their way to marriage at the end of this book – and the existence of some 20 books about their experiments in detection suggest that they go on to live – if not happily ever after, at least with boredom-free lives.
[Updated information: a small publisher called Minor Manor Press appears to have republished at least a couple of Ames's books, and there are still copies available of several Ames books published by the sadly defunct Rue Morgue Press. Your favorite mystery bookdealer should be able to find a copy of She Shall Have Murder for you.
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If you would like to listen to the original review, please click here.
Next week: The Mysterious Mr. Quin, by Agatha Christie.
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