Scan barcode
jenmcmaynes's review against another edition
3.0
A competent but rather bland mystery. The details of the aerodome and early flying livened it up a little, but the detectives often suffered from serious gaps in reasoning. As in, some times their logic or proof was just absurd.
While this was better than the first British Library Crime Classics reissue that I read, I can't say it was great. I think these reissued books are best left in the past!
While this was better than the first British Library Crime Classics reissue that I read, I can't say it was great. I think these reissued books are best left in the past!
shellystilger's review against another edition
4.0
According to the introduction, the novels of this author languished in obscurity for quite some time before being rediscovered and re-published. As good a cosy mystery as my favorite Christie, Allingham, March, et al.
sheharyarali's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
about_wind_and_willows's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
ilariam's review against another edition
3.0
Un esperto aviatore si schianta con uno degli aerei della scuola di volo dove lavora.
Uno sfortunato incidente, dovuto ad un errore umano? Un premeditato suicidio? Un sofisticato omicidio?
La morte di George Furnace non è che il punto di partenza di una complicata indagine che porterà a galla molto più di quanto inizialmente supposto dal dottor Marriot, vescovo australiano e neomembro dell'Aeroclub di Baston, il primo ad accorgersi che qualcosa non quadra.
Non è facile capire cosa sia successo, anche perché ogni qual volta qualcosa sembra confermare una delle ipotesi, ecco che qualcos'altro mette tutto in discussione...
Sebbene non sia difficile cominciare a sospettare di chi c'è dietro alla morte di Furnace, bisogna ammettere che Christopher St. John Sprigg riesce comunque a tenere il lettore in dubbio fino alla fine, perché è tutt'altro che facile capire come l'ingegnoso quadro criminale sia stato realizzato.
Piuttosto sorprendente anche l'inaspettato finale... in rosa!
Una lettura piacevole e poco impegnativa, con diversi spunti piuttosto originali, che pur non essendo uno dei capisaldi della narrativa poliziesca degli anni '30, vale comunque la pena riscoprire.
Uno sfortunato incidente, dovuto ad un errore umano? Un premeditato suicidio? Un sofisticato omicidio?
La morte di George Furnace non è che il punto di partenza di una complicata indagine che porterà a galla molto più di quanto inizialmente supposto dal dottor Marriot, vescovo australiano e neomembro dell'Aeroclub di Baston, il primo ad accorgersi che qualcosa non quadra.
Non è facile capire cosa sia successo, anche perché ogni qual volta qualcosa sembra confermare una delle ipotesi, ecco che qualcos'altro mette tutto in discussione...
Sebbene non sia difficile cominciare a sospettare di chi c'è dietro alla morte di Furnace, bisogna ammettere che Christopher St. John Sprigg riesce comunque a tenere il lettore in dubbio fino alla fine, perché è tutt'altro che facile capire come l'ingegnoso quadro criminale sia stato realizzato.
Piuttosto sorprendente anche l'inaspettato finale... in rosa!
Una lettura piacevole e poco impegnativa, con diversi spunti piuttosto originali, che pur non essendo uno dei capisaldi della narrativa poliziesca degli anni '30, vale comunque la pena riscoprire.
maplessence's review against another edition
4.0
If you read Sprigg's bio on Goodreads, you will find a very interesting man who died way too young.
Certainly I would like to know more about him.
Reading this book, I would have sworn that Sprigg was a pilot. Reading his bio on Wikipedia Under his real name of Christopher Caudwell,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caudwell I found out that he was knowledgeable about flight and wrote a couple of books about it.
& this book got off to a cracking start when an Australian bishop turns up at the Baston Air Club wanting flying lessons. But there are some strange goings on...
The book was terrific at the start, (& had some wonderful characters throughout, like Lady Crumbles the ruthless fundraiser!) it did lose a bit of momentum in the centre, but the ending tied up all the loose ends. & just for once I guessed the chief villain - only two pages before the reveal but still!
One of the better Golden Age books I have read by a lesser known writer.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshessonovel.wordpress.com
Merged review:
If you read Sprigg's bio on Goodreads, you will find a very interesting man who died way too young.
Certainly I would like to know more about him.
Reading this book, I would have sworn that Sprigg was a pilot. Reading his bio on Wikipedia Under his real name of Christopher Caudwell,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caudwell I found out that he was knowledgeable about flight and wrote a couple of books about it.
& this book got off to a cracking start when an Australian bishop turns up at the Baston Air Club wanting flying lessons. But there are some strange goings on...
The book was terrific at the start, (& had some wonderful characters throughout, like Lady Crumbles the ruthless fundraiser!) it did lose a bit of momentum in the centre, but the ending tied up all the loose ends. & just for once I guessed the chief villain - only two pages before the reveal but still!
One of the better Golden Age books I have read by a lesser known writer.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshessonovel.wordpress.com
Certainly I would like to know more about him.
Reading this book, I would have sworn that Sprigg was a pilot. Reading his bio on Wikipedia Under his real name of Christopher Caudwell,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caudwell I found out that he was knowledgeable about flight and wrote a couple of books about it.
& this book got off to a cracking start when an Australian bishop turns up at the Baston Air Club wanting flying lessons. But there are some strange goings on...
The book was terrific at the start, (& had some wonderful characters throughout, like Lady Crumbles the ruthless fundraiser!) it did lose a bit of momentum in the centre, but the ending tied up all the loose ends. & just for once I guessed the chief villain - only two pages before the reveal but still!
One of the better Golden Age books I have read by a lesser known writer.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshessonovel.wordpress.com
Merged review:
If you read Sprigg's bio on Goodreads, you will find a very interesting man who died way too young.
Certainly I would like to know more about him.
Reading this book, I would have sworn that Sprigg was a pilot. Reading his bio on Wikipedia Under his real name of Christopher Caudwell,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caudwell I found out that he was knowledgeable about flight and wrote a couple of books about it.
& this book got off to a cracking start when an Australian bishop turns up at the Baston Air Club wanting flying lessons. But there are some strange goings on...
The book was terrific at the start, (& had some wonderful characters throughout, like Lady Crumbles the ruthless fundraiser!) it did lose a bit of momentum in the centre, but the ending tied up all the loose ends. & just for once I guessed the chief villain - only two pages before the reveal but still!
One of the better Golden Age books I have read by a lesser known writer.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshessonovel.wordpress.com
fictionfan's review against another edition
4.0
Those magnificent men (and women) in their flying machines...
When George Furnace, instructor of the Baston Aero Club, is found dead in the wreck of his crashed plane, everyone assumes it was a tragic accident, even though he was a skilled airman. Everyone, that is, except the Bishop of Cootamundra, who has signed on to take lessons at the flying school so he can fly himself around his vast diocese back in Australia. The Bishop has some knowledge of medicine, and he notices something strange about Furnace’s corpse. Enter Inspector Creighton of the local constabulary, closely followed by Inspector Bray of the Yard...
There are three main elements to this entertaining mystery – who, why and how – with some added confusion over whether this really was a murder at all. At points, there are reasons to think Furnace may have committed suicide, unlikely though that seems for a man of his character, and there’s still the possibility the Bishop is wrong and it was an accident after all. But Furnace’s death soon becomes almost secondary, since Creighton and Bray quickly discover in the course of their investigations that there seems to be an international criminal conspiracy going on around the airfield, in which they suspect some of the flyers are involved, either knowingly or as dupes of the mysterious Chief of the criminal gang. But which are which? Suspicions and accusations abound and the plot is increasingly complicated to the point where I had lost all capacity to keep the facts separate from the new theories propounded every few pages by Creighton, Bray, the Bishop and just about everybody else who appears in the book!
This is one of those mysteries where it’s important to switch off one’s credibility monitor and simply go with the flow. The mystery all depends on the detectives and forensic experts missing or misinterpreting clues all over the place. First published in 1934, I’d expect forensic pathology not to be up to modern standards, but here we have to accept that they can miss minor details like bullet holes and mix up times of deaths to a frankly ridiculous level. So long as you don’t mind the general implausibility, though, it’s fun accepting the “facts” as given and trying to work out how Furnace’s death came about, that being the key to finding out who killed him and why.
The first half of the book is set in and around the flying club, so has the feel of a closed circle of suspects in traditional Golden Age style. However once the international angle becomes apparent, Creighton and Bray follow leads up to Glasgow and over to Paris, before it all comes back to the flying club in the end for the final dénouement. This adds extra interest and also gives Sprigg the opportunity to talk a lot about flying and planes, which, as a pilot himself, he does knowledgeably and entertainingly, his love for flying shining through. (It’s sad to note that Sprigg died a few years later, flying as a volunteer pilot in the Spanish Civil War, aged just 29.)
The characterisation is what makes the book, though, and carries the reader quite contentedly through the plotting complexities. The book is full of “types” rather than stereotypes – the ex-WW1 pilots, the adventurous flyers out to break records in this still new field, the decent if stolid local policeman, the more incisive methods of the Yard detective. Then there are the staff and pupils of the flying school, and the locals who get involved in one way or another. Lady Crumbles walks over everyone in her mission to do good to people whether they want to have good done to them or not. Sally Sackbut runs the school with alarming efficiency. Tommy Vane is cheerful if incompetent as a pupil, finishing every lesson with a quick dash to the bar for a double whisky. Lady Laura Vanguard and Mrs Angevin are rivals as flying adventurers and also divide the attention of the males of the club, each having their own admirers. And the Bishop bumbles along, not very good at flying, not as good as he thinks he is at detecting, but always willing to listen to other people’s troubles and to offer them sympathy and advice. They’re all enjoyable and mostly likeable, even though we know some of them must be the baddies.
In my view, the plotting and structure of this are too messy for it to count as a top rank classic of Golden Age crime, but it’s full of gentle humour and has a warm-hearted tone despite the dark deeds. I enjoyed reading it and am sorry that Sprigg didn’t get the chance to have a long writing career – the youthful exuberance and writing skill he shows in this one may well have allowed him to become one of the greats in time, as he developed more discipline over plotting. Despite his short career, though, he wrote several other mystery novels, and a check on Amazon shows that some of them are available as Kindle e-books. I look forward to reading more of them.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When George Furnace, instructor of the Baston Aero Club, is found dead in the wreck of his crashed plane, everyone assumes it was a tragic accident, even though he was a skilled airman. Everyone, that is, except the Bishop of Cootamundra, who has signed on to take lessons at the flying school so he can fly himself around his vast diocese back in Australia. The Bishop has some knowledge of medicine, and he notices something strange about Furnace’s corpse. Enter Inspector Creighton of the local constabulary, closely followed by Inspector Bray of the Yard...
There are three main elements to this entertaining mystery – who, why and how – with some added confusion over whether this really was a murder at all. At points, there are reasons to think Furnace may have committed suicide, unlikely though that seems for a man of his character, and there’s still the possibility the Bishop is wrong and it was an accident after all. But Furnace’s death soon becomes almost secondary, since Creighton and Bray quickly discover in the course of their investigations that there seems to be an international criminal conspiracy going on around the airfield, in which they suspect some of the flyers are involved, either knowingly or as dupes of the mysterious Chief of the criminal gang. But which are which? Suspicions and accusations abound and the plot is increasingly complicated to the point where I had lost all capacity to keep the facts separate from the new theories propounded every few pages by Creighton, Bray, the Bishop and just about everybody else who appears in the book!
This is one of those mysteries where it’s important to switch off one’s credibility monitor and simply go with the flow. The mystery all depends on the detectives and forensic experts missing or misinterpreting clues all over the place. First published in 1934, I’d expect forensic pathology not to be up to modern standards, but here we have to accept that they can miss minor details like bullet holes and mix up times of deaths to a frankly ridiculous level. So long as you don’t mind the general implausibility, though, it’s fun accepting the “facts” as given and trying to work out how Furnace’s death came about, that being the key to finding out who killed him and why.
The first half of the book is set in and around the flying club, so has the feel of a closed circle of suspects in traditional Golden Age style. However once the international angle becomes apparent, Creighton and Bray follow leads up to Glasgow and over to Paris, before it all comes back to the flying club in the end for the final dénouement. This adds extra interest and also gives Sprigg the opportunity to talk a lot about flying and planes, which, as a pilot himself, he does knowledgeably and entertainingly, his love for flying shining through. (It’s sad to note that Sprigg died a few years later, flying as a volunteer pilot in the Spanish Civil War, aged just 29.)
The characterisation is what makes the book, though, and carries the reader quite contentedly through the plotting complexities. The book is full of “types” rather than stereotypes – the ex-WW1 pilots, the adventurous flyers out to break records in this still new field, the decent if stolid local policeman, the more incisive methods of the Yard detective. Then there are the staff and pupils of the flying school, and the locals who get involved in one way or another. Lady Crumbles walks over everyone in her mission to do good to people whether they want to have good done to them or not. Sally Sackbut runs the school with alarming efficiency. Tommy Vane is cheerful if incompetent as a pupil, finishing every lesson with a quick dash to the bar for a double whisky. Lady Laura Vanguard and Mrs Angevin are rivals as flying adventurers and also divide the attention of the males of the club, each having their own admirers. And the Bishop bumbles along, not very good at flying, not as good as he thinks he is at detecting, but always willing to listen to other people’s troubles and to offer them sympathy and advice. They’re all enjoyable and mostly likeable, even though we know some of them must be the baddies.
In my view, the plotting and structure of this are too messy for it to count as a top rank classic of Golden Age crime, but it’s full of gentle humour and has a warm-hearted tone despite the dark deeds. I enjoyed reading it and am sorry that Sprigg didn’t get the chance to have a long writing career – the youthful exuberance and writing skill he shows in this one may well have allowed him to become one of the greats in time, as he developed more discipline over plotting. Despite his short career, though, he wrote several other mystery novels, and a check on Amazon shows that some of them are available as Kindle e-books. I look forward to reading more of them.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
paulcowdell's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 It's an efficient and fun 1930s romp, with all the encumbrances of the style of the period (yes, there really are characters called Lady Crumbles and Lady Laura Vanguard). These, coupled with a relative absence of any social observation, are perhaps surprising from a man who was on the point of adopting Marxism so comprehensively. Beyond being a reasonably adept writer, it might be easier to see Sprigg and Christopher Caudwell as basically different people.
roguebear's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best classic whodunnits I've read. Cleverly put together and profoundly entertaining. A good mix between seriousness and lighthearted fun and a whimsical, fun cast. I am not surprised Dorothy Sayers gave it a rave review - it reminded me of some of her best work.