If the entry about author Michael Gilbert in the Golden Age of Detection Wiki is correct, one of the many features worth mentioning about Gilbert is that he had, at one point in his legal career, Raymond Chandler as a client. I do wonder what Chandler, that dour and hard-boiled creator of Philip Marlowe, might have thought of Gilbert's rather light-hearted, distinctly Golden-Age-style Smallbone Deceased (1950), a clever and witty mystery that is generally quite highly regarded by genre historians and critics. It looks as though it has slipped out of print again, due mostly to the unfortunate closing of the Rue Morgue Press, but Amazon, at least, lists several dozen copies floating around out there, most at reasonable prices. Here's what I had to say about Smallbone Deceased in my review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, some nine years ago (edited primarily to address the question of its availability):
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Here’s a problem which gives a new meaning to the phrase, “an open and shut case.” A firm of London solicitors finds the body of a missing client crammed into a large, hermetically-sealed deed box in their own office. It’s the story told in Smallbone Deceased, by Michael Gilbert.
Michael Gilbert’s work has been honored by other mystery writers and fans in both the United States and his native Britain. Smallbone Deceased is widely regarded as his masterpiece – a tightly plotted, fairly clued puzzle, written with a great deal of humor, and featuring some of Gilbert’s more interesting characters.
The story begins in the offices of a firm of London solicitors – a term which, in the U. K., refers to lawyers who handle most legal matters but do not represent their clients in court. The firm of Horniman, Birley and Craine is a most respectable, if fairly small, establishment, dealing with leases, conveyances, estates, trusts and so forth. The story begins, in fact, with the search for one of the trustees for a charitable trust, whose signature is needed on an obscure legal document. The missing trustee, Marcus Smallbone, turns up, all right – quite dead, stuffed inside the hermetically-sealed box in which the papers relating to that trust were supposed to be stored. Let me add that I have some trouble visualizing the size of safe deposit box that must be involved; then again, we are told that Smallbone was not a large man.
The case is turned over to Inspector Hazlerigg, an intelligent, insightful police officer, who quickly realizes that it would be useful to have an ally inside the firm. He chooses a solicitor named Henry Bohun, who is quite intelligent and completely free of any suspicion, having been hired after the murder must have taken place. Bohun is also useful because he suffers from what is called parainsomnia – that is, he sleeps only one-and-a-half to two hours a night, giving him a great deal of time in which he can help Inspector Hazlerigg with his investigations. It is with the blessing of Scotland Yard’s assistant commissioner that Hazlerigg approaches Bohun – though the commissioner does observe, “It’s quite a good idea. Only for heaven’s sake don’t be like that mug in the detective story who confides all his best ideas to a friendly sort of character who turns out to be the murderer in Chapter Sixteen.”
At first it appears to be a very straightforward case – it’s believed that the dead man was most likely killed by the firm’s senior partner, Abel Horniman, who had himself died quite recently, presumably after the murder. But that theory quickly falls apart – particularly when there is a second murder, making it clear that they are dealing with a very live and lively killer.
All this is presented quite fairly to the reader, though Gilbert’s tongue is usually quite firmly in his cheek. There is a good deal of humor here, and it helps to lighten the overall mood caused by a couple of fairly unpleasant murders. Gilbert’s own background as a lawyer comes across fairly clearly in his explanations of some of the issues at stake.
Smallbone Deceased has been admired since it first appeared in 1950, and H. R. F. Keating included it in his list of the 100 best crime novels of all time. There is no shortage of possible suspects, and the red herrings are well and truly distributed throughout the book. But there are also legitimate and carefully placed clues. I must say that I wound up suspecting the murderer based on a fact that had been presented pretty early in the book – though, in fairness, I would have to add that I was well and truly fooled by some of the developments.
The bottom line, I think, is that if you are looking for a classic puzzle mystery, with a truly unusual premise, interesting characters, and fair play leading to a surprising but logical conclusion, then you should enjoy Michael Gilbert’s Smallbone Deceased.
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You can listen to the original audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast by clicking here.
Next week: The Journeying Boy, by Michael Innes.
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