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.

Detective Inspector Edward Strood is shadowing Mr. Purdie from a diamond broker to Mr. Purdie’s residence in hopes of catching the notorious “Crook’s Shadow” in the act of stealing the pocketful of diamond Mr. Purdy will transport to Amsterdam.

While Mr. Purdie is collecting his diamonds, his young beautiful secretary is visited at Mr. Purdie’s house by the shifty Mr. Hastings. Believing that Mr. Hastings does not have legitimate business with Mr. Purdie, she shuts him in a room and telephones Mr. Purdie for further instructions and to verify his credentials, Mr. Purdie knows nothing about Mr. Hastings’s supposed business, and when Miss Meredith goes back to confront Mr. Hastings, he has vanished.

Mr. Purdie returns to his home office and puts the diamonds in the safe. A few minutes later, Inspector Strood arrives at the house to warn Purdie to be on the lookout for the “Crook’s Shadow,” a man Edward Strood believes tails criminal gangs, is a master of disguise, very physically fit, incredibly crafty, and very good at stealing big scores underneath the noses of other master criminals. Strood asks to see the diamonds, but they are gone when Purdie goes to fetch them from the safe.

Searching the grounds, they do not find the diamonds, but they find a two-bit thief who works for one of the most oversized criminal outfits under a dangerous boss named Hatchett. Strood meets up with Hatchett to concoct an ingenious plan which includes the two of them working together to catch the “Crook’s Shadow” before he strikes again.

Hatchett tentatively agrees to help Strood but privately sends out agents to murder “The Crook’s Shadow” if he’s caught. Hatchett wants to rid himself of this rival master criminal because he is planning a vast score: to surreptitiously board The Rajah of Puht and steal Lady Constance Bolliver’s half a million in diamonds.

Strood, knowing that his alliance with Hatchett is tenuous, enlists Miss Meredith’s help, and together they are embroiled in a changing cat-and-mouse game to find and stop “The Crook’s Shadow” before he strikes again or ends up dead.

The Review

The Crook’s Shadow was a fun cat-and-mouse game with many ever-changing alliances; it’s full of double-crossing, suspicion, and a sweet love story between Miss Meredith and Inspector Strood. The entire story has an unreal quality about it- J. Jefferson Farjeon is vague on details- so ambiguous that for the first 50 pages, I was unsure if Strood was a policeman or if that, too, was merely fiction. This thriller is highly impressionist and motivated by how people feel- there are no long boring timetables to worry about, or really anything to ground the reader into thinking- this an actual fact, most of the book is just the reader floating along in a dreamy, suspicious atmosphere without much of a guide.

It was a different style, and I liked it; Farjeon isn’t too caught up in how “The Crook’s Shadow” can commit his feats of daredevil thefts or changeling appearance. He writes such fantastical descriptions that even though I knew his explanations were patently ridiculous- I liked them nonetheless. There’s sort of a carefree, infectiously entertaining writing style in how this book is presented. Its primary purpose is to titillate and enthrall, with people pinging back and forth across the countryside at breakneck speed, alternatively at each other’s throats and in the throes of true love.

Since I never really felt like I knew what was happening, I couldn’t guess who the “Crook’s Shadow is” or, as many of Inspector Strood’s fellow investigators chided him, if he even existed. However, when the explanation was given at the end, the solution to how Mr. Purdie’s diamonds were stolen and who did it was so deceptively simple that I laughed out loud.

This book is fun and fluff, which was great to read while flying, but once I finished the last page, the whole story flew out of my brain. There’s not much to hold on to besides the changing alliances. There are no big themes or masterful language, and the mystery doesn’t “really” hang together if you give it more than a second of thought, but it was fun and diverting. I recommend The Crook’s Shadow if you need the book equivalent to cotton candy (or, as the British call it, candy floss) or just want a light summer read.

#20booksofsummer23 Reviews