Lonely Magdalen (1940)
Blurb:
My review:
There
is
something refreshingly modern about this 1940 detective novel. Instead of the “innocence” Symons, Keating et
al. accused the classic detective writers of having, the author shows
knowledge
of the more sordid sides of life. The
victim is a prostitute, strangled on Hampstead Heath, and the suspects
are to
be found among her clients. Detection of
the police procedural variety (far more credible than that of Crofts,
and
livelier) reveals the woman’s antecedents, which are revealed in a
second
section strongly reminiscent of Galsworthy, Dickens or Berkeley (Murder in the Basement). This
leads the detection in another direction—and
the solution is revealed. Although there
is some clever misdirection, the solution is profoundly anti-climactic
and inartistic, for it turns two-thirds of
the novel into padding. The novel can
only be termed satisfying if the solution revealed in the final
paragraph is
the correct one, which makes Poole complicit in police
corruption—another
example of Wade’s supremely cynical ideas about justice.