Something peculiar appears to be going on in the English village of Flaxborough. Elderly women have been disappearing. They were at least moderately well-off (if not exactly rich) and - very definitely - all of them were lonely. Was someone preying on these women, whose loneliness may have made them targets of a smooth-talking killer? That's the question Detective Inspector Purbright and his assistant, Detective Sergeant Sidney Love, want answered, preferably before anyone else disappears. The details may be found in Colin Watson's novel, Lonelyheart 4122, which is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.
Flaxborough is not exactly the model of the Golden Age English village. Colin Watson wrote eleven mysteries set in Flaxborough, a town with remarkably lax moral standards, with Purbright and Love as his central characters. Flaxborough was defined in an earlier book as "a high-spirited town…like Gomorrah." It is not the sort of place where you might expect to find, say, Miss Marple. In Lonelyheart 4122, the fourth book in Watson's series, published in 1967, Inspector Purbright, and his assistant, Sergeant Love, tackle the mysterious disappearances of some local women. All appear to have one connection in common: each woman had paid a twenty guinea fee to a "matrimonial bureau" called Handclasp House, where women seeking husbands and men seeking wives were encouraged to correspond with and, ultimately, to meet each other with an eye towards eventual marriage. Purbright and Love found strong indications that the missing women might have exchanged introductory letters with the same man – another "client" of Handclasp House - but there was no easy way to identify him as his records appeared to be missing.
And then another woman came to Flaxborough, quite possibly with matrimony on her mind. Miss Lucy Teatime - yes, that's her name - found and visited Handclasp House, paid her twenty guinea fee and began corresponding with an unknown man – who signed himself at first “Lonelyheart 4122.” She quickly met the man, and their romance appeared to be progressing quite smoothly. In fact, Purbright and Love became quite concerned for Miss Teatime’s safety when they found out about her, as nobody but Miss Teatime seemed able to identify “Lonelyheart 4122.” But Miss Teatime was quite convinced that she could take care of herself without police interference. And – it must be said – Miss Teatime had a few secrets of her own.
Lonelyheart 4122 is a wickedly funny satire that demolishes certain clichés of traditional mysteries. Colin Watson’s writing is laugh-out-loud funny in places. And he doesn’t forget that readers will be expecting a few sudden twists and turns along the way – and he provides them very neatly indeed. A British publisher, Farrago, is bringing back Colin Watson’s mysteries as e-books, and I think you would enjoy this one.
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