Unholy Dying by R. T. Campbell
In this 1945 murder mystery no suspect has an alibi. When geneticist Ian Porter, disliked by fellow scientists and research assistants alike, is found murdered most foully at a learned convention, plant physiologist John Stubbs is determined to find the perp and clear his nephew, Andrew Blake.
The star is Professor Stubbs. He frequently quaffs beer lest he become dehydrated, eats with no regard to caloric intake, smokes a disgusting pipe, and speaks like a character out of Dickens. His high spirits, eccentricity, and flowery way with words are mostly amusing and engaging. But in the last quarter of the book, the reader is reminded of the New Yorker cartoon in which the wife takes the burly husband aside at a party and advises, “Would you please stop being so ‘larger than life.’”
Author Campbell was a poet, but he has realistic insight into the rivalries and enmities among scientists, who are ever mindful that credit for generating knowledge be assigned to the correct expert, especially if they are the expert. The university setting and the atmosphere of competitiveness and adversarial challenge ring true, especially for readers who are experienced with principle investigators who are determined to generate knowledge, establish reputations, attract grants and wow the attendees of learned conventions.
Campbell’s next book was Bodies
in a Bookshop. It starred Stubbs too, and the narrator was another young
associate, Max Boyle. In Unholy Dying,
the young narrator Andrew Blake tells the story in the first person in parts
one and three.
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