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A review by pro_ble_matic
Call Mr. Fortune by H.C. Bailey
4.0
Overall, I am opposed to any screen reading, as I will always love having a physical book on me, but Call Mr. Fortune was due to be the exception to the rule due to its availability. It is accessible via Google Books at 262 pages.
Call Mr. Fortune is set as six short stories, making it easily digestible. I went in fully prepared to read one case and call it done, but was quickly enveloped in the Sherlock Holmes-esque storytelling. Mr. Fortune starts out as a general family doctor taking over his father's business, but rapidly turns into a criminal investigator with his medical background.
Each story is its own mystery, not always(see Case V), but commonly referring to a murder. In Case I, Mr. Fortune is not trusted to take on the case as he is a young physician, a family doctor, but quickly asserts his prowess in the field as he solves the mystery at hand. He is then trusted by the Criminal Investigation Department and called upon for any new case to be investigated for cause of death, and ultimately, the person behind the crime.
"Of course he does know a lot, does Mr. Fortune, a rare lot of stuff. But that's natural, as it were. What upsets you is the sort of way he feels men. It's as is if he had senses you haven't got. Very strange the way he knows men." (page 240) Reggie Fortune is able to pick apart and see things at an angle no other could take, making him into a detective akin to Sherlock Holmes.
And then, there is his love of muffins that is recurring and made me giggle the more I saw it across each case. Mr.Fortune is a carbohydrate king:
"Reginald communed with himself as he ate his third muffin." (page 3)
"Reggie, having eaten all the muffins, lit his pipe and meditated on the cases left him by his father." (page 6)
"There he sat before an empty plate which held muffins, and lit one of his largest cigars." (page 165)
"'What I want is muffins,' said Reggie-'several muffins and a little tea and my domestic hearth. Then I'll feel safe.'" (page 210)
"'I found scraps of wool in Herbert's mouth and nostrils. That's the case, Lomas, old thing. Come and have tea. There's rather decent muffins at the Academies'.'/'Good God!' said Lomas. 'Muffins!'" (page 150)
Call Mr. Fortune is set as six short stories, making it easily digestible. I went in fully prepared to read one case and call it done, but was quickly enveloped in the Sherlock Holmes-esque storytelling. Mr. Fortune starts out as a general family doctor taking over his father's business, but rapidly turns into a criminal investigator with his medical background.
Each story is its own mystery, not always(see Case V), but commonly referring to a murder. In Case I, Mr. Fortune is not trusted to take on the case as he is a young physician, a family doctor, but quickly asserts his prowess in the field as he solves the mystery at hand. He is then trusted by the Criminal Investigation Department and called upon for any new case to be investigated for cause of death, and ultimately, the person behind the crime.
"Of course he does know a lot, does Mr. Fortune, a rare lot of stuff. But that's natural, as it were. What upsets you is the sort of way he feels men. It's as is if he had senses you haven't got. Very strange the way he knows men." (page 240) Reggie Fortune is able to pick apart and see things at an angle no other could take, making him into a detective akin to Sherlock Holmes.
And then, there is his love of muffins that is recurring and made me giggle the more I saw it across each case. Mr.Fortune is a carbohydrate king:
"Reginald communed with himself as he ate his third muffin." (page 3)
"Reggie, having eaten all the muffins, lit his pipe and meditated on the cases left him by his father." (page 6)
"There he sat before an empty plate which held muffins, and lit one of his largest cigars." (page 165)
"'What I want is muffins,' said Reggie-'several muffins and a little tea and my domestic hearth. Then I'll feel safe.'" (page 210)
"'I found scraps of wool in Herbert's mouth and nostrils. That's the case, Lomas, old thing. Come and have tea. There's rather decent muffins at the Academies'.'/'Good God!' said Lomas. 'Muffins!'" (page 150)