The Avenging Chance (2004)
My review:
Possibly
the
best Crippen & Landru so far. Tony
Medawar’s introduction is excellent, and the stories are, as one would
expect from
Cox, of a high order. “The Avenging
Chance” is an acknowledged masterpiece, so little need be said of it,
other
than what a pleasure it is to read it
again. “Perfect Alibi,” a very short
story that inspired The Second Shot,
is quite entertaining for its length, but one wonders that the local
police
didn’t wonder why the constable committed suicide.
The third tale, “The Mystery of Horne’s
Copse,” which bears some resemblance to Hitchcock’s under-rated The Trouble with Harry, has one of the
cleverest (and most convincing) uses of the vanishing and reappearing
corpse,
and should be better known. Everybody
believes “Unsound Mind” to be the best story, but is more interesting
for its
detection (pastiche Christopher Bush?) than for the solution, which is
evident
from the beginning. Interesting
psychology, though: the victim goes out of his way to protect his
beloved
murderer (rather like Not to Be Taken,
in fact). “White Butterfly,” in which
Sheringham sets out to be the psychological sleuth but ends up solving
the case
on the basis of the psychological clue of the title (rather like Reggie
Fortune), is mild entertainment; while “The Wrong Jar” is a tedious and
sour
reworking of the masterly Not to Be Taken,
interesting only for the bloody child who calls forth Cox’s
sadomasochism. The very early “Double
Bluff,” which features
Alec Grierson, is pleasantly facetious, and, under the banter and ’20s
atmosphere, has a clever (too clever?) plot not too dissimilar to The Silk Stocking Murders, while “Mr.
Bearstowe Says…,” which takes Roger into the 1940s, is a clever little
tale,
related to “White Butterfly.” A very
pleasing collection.