Golden Age of Detective Fiction

#20booksofsummer23 is a reading challenge started by 746 Books where participants attempt to read 10, 15, or 20 books off of their TBR and review them between June 1 – September 1, 2023. I am trying to read and review 6-7 books that I picked per month. You can see my complete reading list here.

In the middle of the night, the S.S. Asapasie, an ocean liner crossing the English channel, hits a shelf of rocks off the Cornish Coast called the Lizard Peninsula and sinks. The horrific shipwrecks kill hundreds. Among the survivors, rescued by sailor and reporter Austin Voogdt, is the demure and terrified Maugerite, who appears to be hiding something, but Voogdt cannot discover what before she disembarks from his ship, the Godwit in Brest, France, with several other Asapasie survivors.

Before the salvage ship, Godwit and Voogdt can sail again, he writes a shipwreck report for his newspaper and gives evidence on the rescue operation. During the police investigation into the shipwreck, they find Bernard Scholfield, a prominent financier, absconded on the Asapasie with 80,000 English pounds. Several serial numbered bills are popping up all over Brest and the French coast.

Voogdt has several of these bills after his trip to Brest and starts tracking the missing money. Voogdt is plagued by the idea that Marguerite is somehow tied up in this financial disaster and wants to shield her from prosecution because he is in love with her. He visits Marguerite several times at her lodgings in Brest and enlists his two best friends, Jem and Pamela, to help him entertain Marguerite and track the missing notes.

However, the English police soon believe that Voogdt and his friends are involved in stealing the money and are trailing their every move. Voogdt must prove his innocence, protect his friends, and save Margarite by unraveling what happened on that fatal journey on the S.S. Asapasie and Bernard Scholfield’s stolen banknotes before they are all arrested.

The Review

The Ocean Sleuth was almost a DNF for me, which is surprising because the initial inciting incident of the sinking of the S.S. Asapasie was described in such a harrowing and heart-wrenching way. Maurice Drake has a beautifully lyrical and lush writing style. It shines at the beginning of The Ocean Sleuth when he lovingly describes ships and the terrible human tragedy when the Asapasie sinks.

However, Maurice Drake is not very good at writing characters. The sailors amongst the Godwit are basically indistinguishable; four of them are given the same name: Charles. I think this is to drive home the point that sailors are somewhat interchangeable, but it could also be a lack of imagination on Drake’s part. Austin Voogdt, billed as “The Sherlock of the Sea,” plays a little fast and loose with that Sherlock moniker. First, Voogdt doesn’t so much as detect as slowly going from location to location, mooning about Marguerite, and having endless anxiety spirals about her possible involvement in stealing the money.

Marguerite is innocent and gentle, and beautiful; she is declared by Jem and Pamela to be perfect and lovely in every way. To be fair, she is pleasant but has little humanity outside of being a fragile doll that needs Voogdt’s protection. Their love story is drawn out by the fact that Marguerite won’t marry Voogdt even though she professes to love him often because she can’t. Also, she can’t say why she can’t. She’s mysterious, vague, and dull; the whole love affair is tedious. Unfortunately, this thin love story is the primary motivating factor as to anything Voogdt does, so if you’re not on board with it, The Ocean Sleuth will be a rough read.

Isn’t this book supposed to be about finding stolen bank notes and investigating a deadly shipwreck? Yes, that’s what I thought, too, since Drake spends a lot of the first 75 pages describing boats in excruciating detail, but Voogdt has nothing to do with the police investigation of the shipwreck. That’s investigated by nameless people and waived away in a few pages of exposition. Voogdt does “investigate” the trail of the money off and on over 18 months. He never makes much headway with the police or gets anywhere with his friends and their amateurish attempts to get the notes out of circulation and hand them over to authorities.

In fact, the case is only cracked because Marguerite finally tells the truth about Bernard Schofield and what happened on the Aspasie after Voogdt trails her to her family home and discovers her undeniable secret. The whole thing was a misunderstanding, and the culprit, sorry for his misdeed, returns the money and then dies so Marguerite and Voogdt can marry and live happily ever after.

Ooof. It’s not a satisfying conclusion to the mystery for the reader. I had figured out the connection between Marguerite and Bernard Schofield. I was not shocked by Drake’s big reveal. I was disappointed that Voogdt figured everything out by blundering onto the scene and having Marguerite spell everything out in painstaking detail.

I think I am supposed to be happy that the two love birds got together in the end, but I found their love story so insipid that I was ultimately baffled by why anyone would want to marry Voogdt.

The Ocean Sleuth was probably liked well enough in 1915, but it’s a relic of its time. The beautiful lyricism and poignant telling of the sinking of the S.S. Asapasie was great. Still, none of that remarkable storytelling was carried over into the mystery, which is a shame.

#20booksofsummer23 Reviews