Born this day in 1887, Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 6th Baronet KStJ CVO DSO was Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire from 1954 to 1961. He was also one of the leading authors during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
The Hanging Captain – Henry Wade
In this classic English detective story from 1932, an unlikable captain is found hanging in his library. The Chief Constable dubs it suicide in order to make the affair go away. But a professorial outsider proves the captain was murdered. The two local detectives brought in on the case are the impetuous veteran Detective-Inspector Herbert Lott and his rival to the promotion of Chief Inspector, the logical plodding Poole.
There are numerous suspects, as becomes a Golden Age mystery. Thus, a grist of alibies must be checked, intricate time tables constructed, and lor’ love a duck, there’s even a floor plan of the country house. What distinguishes this from the comfy atmosphere of Sayers and Christie is the possible motives for the murder are quite bold, enough that I can’t in good conscience give them away in a review. Unlike most Golden Age writers, Wade assumes we can handle motives without clutching our pearls, looking for the fainting couch, and sending the maid to fetch the sal volatile.
Wade wrote as many as 22 detective novels or story collections between 1926 and 1957. This one and Mist on the Saltings were published by Harper Perennial in a series of great re-issues in the Eighties.
In their reference book Catalogue of Crime, Barzun and Taylor said about Wade: “Though insufficiently known in the US, Wade is one of the great figures of the classical period. He was not only very productive bit also varied in genre. His plots, characters, situations, and means rank with the best, while his prose has elegance and force.”
I've never read any by Wade, but I remember that plug in Catalogue of Crime. It sounds like I really need to make more effort to find a couple.
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