Death of Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson is another reprint of a classic detective story – this one from 1937. The victim is a bookseller in the Charing Cross Road, who is found dead by a patrolling police officer. Much of the story involves the detectives understanding how the rare book trade works. This is fascinating for a book lover, like myself, and reminded me of another reprint set in the book world – see here for a review of Death of a Bookseller.
Because of when the book was first published, class comes into the story a lot and it is interesting to look at how different occupations were regarded by others at the time – I would like to think that we have moved on from this way of ordering our world but I am not so sure. Certainly, the uniformed police are not held in high regard and the author reinforces this by what happens during the story.
The murder has been preceded by a theft of books and the police detectives who are called into investigate quickly jump to the conclusion that the victim’s son, Dick, is responsible for both crimes. The family are not so sure and they bring in a private detective to investigate on their behalf. The evidence lies in the bookshop but it takes time to discover it and to interpret it correctly.
This is one of those crime novels that gets very complicated because everyone, and there are many suspects, seems to have a secret and/or a motive to commit one or other of the crimes. In the end, I stopped trying to determine what had happened and just read for pleasure. I did enjoy this book which is puzzle, an insight into life in the 1930s, and contains a romance.
