The Saturday Morning Post (No. 121)

 

With the unexpected DNF'ing of Pride and Prejudice, I was left without anything to read, nor any idea what I wanted to read. Since I had Pride and Prejudice on my ebook reader and it was in hand, I looked to see what else I had downloaded that I might want to read, having downloaded more than a hundred public domain books from authors whose books I've read in the past. However, I haven't had a great deal of luck finding ones I liked, even from authors whose works I had liked. But I did settle on one...

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

The Borough Treasurer  by J S Fletcher  C 

J S Fletcher was a prolific writer of detective stories; writing over a hundred of them beginning in 1914. His stories are more like the Sherlock Holmes stories rather than the Agatha Christie type. I had read several of his books prior to reading this one (which is why it was on my ebook reader.)

This story involves blackmail. Two gentlemen embezzled money from a building society, were caught, spent two years in jail, and then disappeared, eventually settling in the north of England. They then started a successful building business on the money they had embezzled, becoming respected members of the community; the mayor and treasurer in the process. Thirty years later, a retired detective stumbles upon them, and attempts to blackmail them. That very night, the blackmailer is strangled in the woods, and neither of the partners have a good alibi...

The story is told from multiple points of view, including the two ex-cons, though we aren't told who murdered the blackmailer. (Though I guessed correctly.) Another man was out that night and also has no alibi, or rather he refuses to provide one, for some reason, even to his lawyers. We then follow the court proceedings, never quite knowing who did what, as the situation gets more and more out of hand for the two suspects, even with the innocent suspect in jail and set for trial.

The fact that we do not follow any one person made it hard for me to get all that invested in the story. It has plenty of twists and turns, and lots of, well unlikely actions by the various characters. And I found myself skim reading various descriptive passages, a sure sign that the story didn't engage me and went on too long. 

A melodramatic ending ties up all the threads.

Fletcher wrote a series of books featuring a private detective, Ronald Chamberwell, which might be more to my taste, as well as some historical novels. We'll have to see if I give him another chance.