As the Classic Mysteries blog this week is presenting my review of J. J. Connington's The Two Ticket Puzzle, I thought this might be a good week in which to offer you another of Connington's mysteries. In fact, Murder in the Maze (1927) is widely considered to be among Connington's best. I think the audio review which appeared on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago will give you some of the reasons why I think this is a book that you should not miss. Here's an edited (mostly sections about the book's availability, as the information has been changed) and slightly updated transcript of what I had to say:
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Have you ever been lost in a maze?
I’m not talking about the pencil-and-paper (or electronic) kind of maze, a harmless, often challenging game. I’m talking about what is usually called a “hedge maze,” the kind of maze you walk into, trying to find your way – usually – to the center of the maze and then out again. The paths in the maze are walled by tall, dense hedges, which prevent you from seeing through to neighboring pathways. Finding your way through these mazes can be challenging, and sometimes frightening. But suppose that you were trying to find your way to the center – actually to one of two centers – in an old and challenging hedge maze…at the exact moment when two murders were taking place in those two centers? And you heard the murderer’s footsteps…and wondered what would happen if that person found you wandering in the maze. That’s the horrifying proposition explored in Murder in the Maze, by J. J. Connington.
Let me start by confessing my own ignorance: Until fairly recently, I had never heard of, much less read, the British author J. J. Connington. That was the pen name used by Alfred Walter Stewart, whose “day job” was as a professor of chemistry. His mysteries, written during what we now call the Golden Age of English detective fiction between the two world wars, were highly praised. T. S. Eliot called this one “a really first-rate detective story.” Other mystery authors agreed, including John Dickson Carr, who called Murder in the Maze “one of the best possible settings for violent death.” But Connington’s books were long out of print, and the few that made their way onto second-hand booksellers’ lists were prohibitively expensive.
Now, Mysterious Press/Open Road Media has re-published several of Connington's books in paper as well as in e-book formats. One of these newly-republished mysteries is “Murder in the Maze,” which was the first to feature Connington’s series detective, Sir Clinton Driffield, the chief constable of the rural English county where the story is set.
Here is the situation: we are introduced to twin brothers, Roger and Neville Shandon. Roger apparently has been involved in a number of fairly shady business deals. Neville, who is visiting his brother’s country estate at Whistlefield, is a prosecuting attorney involved in pressing the case against another – apparently even shadier – businessman. Both men are looking for someplace private where they can go through their papers and think out some pressing business matters. Whistlefield, fortunately, is the proud home of a complex double-maze – a hedge maze with two centers. Naturally, the two men go off to the maze to do their thinking.
Meanwhile, a couple of young guests, Vera Forrest and Howard Torrance, on their own, decide to head for the maze and challenge each other to find their way to one of the centers first. But they have barely separated inside the maze when they hear the sound of an airgun being fired…and a cry and other disturbing sounds. And Vera hears footsteps which may or may not be coming her way. Panic stricken, she blunders her way to one of the centers (and Howard finds his way to the other)…and they find both of the Shandons are dead, shot by poison-tipped darts fired from an airgun.
That opening sequence is remarkably well written, as is a later scene, near the end of the book, which also takes place in the maze and manages to build a truly terrifying atmosphere. It creates a certain amount of claustrophobia in the reader which probably gives some idea of the terror experienced by the various people trapped in the maze.
At any rate, Sir Clinton Driffield arrives to investigate – accompanied by his “Watson,” Squire Wendover. Wendover is no fool, although – as with most Watsons – his purpose in the novel is to confuse the issues somewhat for the reader. Be advised, though, that Connington is most scrupulously fair with his readers. In fact, this is one of those rare books where I actually was able to get to the truth of the matter well before Wendover did – though certainly not before Driffield, who finds himself in the tricky position of trying to forestall any additional murders while he attempts to find the kind of legal proof necessary to trap the killer.
That’s all I want to say about the plot of Murder in the Maze, because it really is delightfully well-done, and I most certainly don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of it. I suspect that, like T. S. Eliot and John Dickson Carr, you will enjoy J. J. Connington’s Murder in the Maze.
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You can listen to the complete original audio review by clicking here.
Next: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie.
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