Golden Age of Detective Fiction

In the refined setting of Regency Square, nestled within Cheltenham’s spa town charm, a chilling crime shakes the tranquil neighborhood: a resident is discovered with an arrow lodged in the back of his head. Superintendent Meredith, a guest at his friend crime novelist Aldous Barnet’s residence, swiftly responds to the call. With approval from his superiors at the Sussex Constabulary, Meredith embarks on unraveling the mystery in collaboration with the local authorities. The victim, known for his dubious character, has left behind a trail of potential adversaries among his neighbors, adding layers of complexity to the investigation. Compounding the intrigue, it’s revealed that several square denizens are members of an archery club, casting suspicion upon familiar faces.

As the investigation progresses, additional threads emerge: a sheep found slain in nearby Winchcombe, pierced by an arrow, and a raid on an illicit gambling establishment in Charlton Kings shed light on key suspects. However, the case takes a chilling turn when a second murder mirrors the first, with an arrow striking its victim while seated in an eerily familiar setting. This unnerving development prompts the authorities to question whether the initial homicide was a tragic case of mistaken identity, plunging them deeper into a web of deception and betrayal.

The Review

The Cheltenham Square Murder, penned by British author John Bude in 1937, presents an enthralling detective narrative within the Superintendent Meredith series. Embracing the era’s penchant for closed-circle suspects, it interweaves elements of police procedural reminiscent of Inspector French novels. Recognizing its enduring appeal, the British Library Publishing reintroduced it in 2016 as part of a curated collection of crime novels from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

The people of Cheltenham Square are a little universe unto themselves; their days are filled with the general passions and foibles of any small community, whether or not to cut down a tree, how annoying a particular tenant’s dogs are, whatever tidbits of gossip that make their way through the grapevine. However, several of the residents of this small plaza are linked together by their love of archery, so when one of the residents is killed by an arrow piercing the skull, several of them are in the soup.

John Bude plays the a riff on the same long distant measuring that he used in the Cornish Coast Murder, except this time he’s going from window to window trying to work out how such a shot could have killed a man. There’s a sort of dry comedy in Meredith having to run a speed course on archery in an attempt to catch this murderer, but at times his conclusions don’t ring true. I don’t know if Bude knew much about archery, but a lot of the finer details sound fudged for the sake of the story, which would be fine- except there’s a lot of long winded discursions about how each volley would have worked or not. At points it rather did seem like the reader was going to be quizzed on the geometry of everything.

Meredith, although better than the local police, does seem wholly absorbed in the archery of it all, which does preclude him from some more apparent solutions that came to my mind immediately. He’s less interested in the entwined lives, jealousies, and petty hurts that would provide more tantalizing motives for mechanics, and even when this theory is disproved time and again, he’s obsessed with proving the mechanics of how an arrow “could work” and explores several ludicrous avenues. When he looks at the totality of the situation, the book becomes a much better read.

However, there are lots of other aspects of the book for the reader to enjoy, The various love affairs and secret assignations, the round robin of people in people’s houses under suspicious pretexts, the unsavory history of the victim, and most assuredly, the weird characters that populate Cheltenham Square. The book gives the reader a bird’s eye view of the neighborhood and allows us to spy on everyone’s secret lives. This is the book’s theme, and I wish this was the book’s main focus instead of the final act.

John Bude Book Reviews

The Cornish Coast Murder (1935)

Death on the Riviera (1952)