Summer is flying by, and The Templeton Case, a classic detective story by Victor L. Whitechurch, is the fourth book I’ll be reviewing from my Summer TBR. Originally published in 1924, it has been republished in 2022 by Spitfire Publishers, giving readers a chance to delve into this intriguing mystery once again.
Plot Synopsis
Explorer and adventurer Reginald Templeton, a man of mystery, has berthed his yacht for a few days at Marsh Quay, a small fictional village in South Downs. Templeton, an eccentric and reclusive figure, visits his cousin, a local Canon, after twenty-odd years of exploring and mining in Africa. Although born in England, Templeton is virtually a stranger to Marsh Quay, and the quaint, quiet village is shocked to its core when Templeton is found murdered on his yacht after having dinner at his cousin’s house.
Detective Sergeant Colson, a determined investigator, has been assigned the case and hopes to solve it without assistance in securing a promotion. However, the Templeton Case is difficult to crack. Colson must catch up on an important clue hidden underneath the body, but the wise Canon doesn’t. Part police procedural, part amateur detective story, The Templeton Case is a knotty mystery with lots to uncover.
The Review
The Templeton Case, published in 1924, is chockablock full of maritime and nautical conundrums. Possibly less foreign to it’s its original audience, who had crewed small vessels, been aboard yachts, or paddled a canoe, but for modern audiences, there’s a definite barrier to entry, and I did spend a lot of time googling information about the various boats used in the story. A glossary of terms, some context about seafaring, and a map of Marsh Quay would have gone far in leveling the playing field for modern readers and immersing them in the story,
However, it’s not just the readers who are having trouble understanding how Templeton got to his boat and his murderer got away—there’s a bit of a fox-chicken-and-grain riddle about the logistics of how the crime was committed, which is slowly pieced together over the first two-thirds of the book.
Once how the crime is committed is cobbled together from direct evidence, context clues, and logic, it is very difficult to locate a suspect. Detective Sergeant Colson interviews several possible suspects who were seen with or near Templeton, but the motive is elusive. Colson springs several ingenious traps but is eventually maneuvered because everyone who might have killed Colson has an airtight alibi. I thought this would be an alibi-busting story, and there is that element, but ultimately, the alibis are solid.
Instead, The Templeton Case has a very intriguing and suspenseful inquest in which a vital piece of evidence that the Canon eventually turns over to the police is substituted with a fake. Who had the opportunity to change the evidence, and why? This substitution eventually gets Detective Sergeant Colson on the right track.
The Templeton Case presents many of the usual elements of early detective fiction in a fresh and inventive way, and I really enjoyed the mystery aspect of the story. However, two glaring issues marred my overall enjoyment of the book.
Firstly, there are some sexist undertones regarding one of the characters. This young and innocent young lady is deemed too delicate and fragile to know the truth of what happened to her father and how that directly led to the death of her friend Mr. Templeton. It’s dressed in romantic language and ripped straight from the Victorian and Edwardian book Whitechurch was raised on. It is inconsistent with the incredibly adept and clever Mrs. Colson, who helps Detective Sergeant Colson work through the knots in his case. Mrs. Colson, at times brighter and more intelligent than he husband, does beg the question- why can’t she be the detective?
A slightly confusing dialectic on the fairer sex in The Templeton Case makes crystal clear that Whitechurch was deeply antisemitic. One of the characters, a Jewish man named Isaac Moss, is regularly debased with slurs and in grotesque stereotyping- interestingly enough, not by other characters, but in the narration, which llendscreedence to this language being Whitechurch’s own gross bias. It was difficult to read such a profoundly antisemitic work, especially since the antisemitism is so jarring and has nothing to do with the story. It could be edited out, and nothing about the mystery or its solution would be affected.
The Templeton Case is an intriguing entry into the crime fiction pantheon, with shades of John Bude’s The Cornish Coast Murder and apparent homages to G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown in the creation of the Canon. It’s a good mystery populated with exciting characters and harmed by the very evident sexist and racist beliefs of the author. I recommend The Templeton Case with the crater-sized caveat that I do not condone the racist and sexist attitudes reflected in the story. Read it, but you’ve been amply warned about the questionable elements that pervade The Templeton Case.
Summer TBR Reviews
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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