Lynn Brock - The Deductions of Colonel Gore - Collins Detective Club - 2018 - (aka Alister McAllister aka Anthony Warton)

 

 Lynn Brock (aka Alister McAllister aka Anthony Wharton) - The Deductions of Colonel Gore - Collins Detective Club - 2018

This book has it`s detractors, but for me it was a very enjoyable introduction to the world of Colonel Gore and left me wanting to sample some of his subsequent adventures. 

This was the first Colonel Gore book (published 1924) and at the time the author was probably not considering a series. 

In this story, Col G has not yet become a private investigator and has no experience of solving mysteries. In fact he walks into this case quite by chance and in places  is motivated less by a desire to crack the case than to protect his childhood friend Barbara Melhuish, known by the nickname Pickles.

It may be as well to address some of the criticisms/misunderstandings that have been written about this book. 

For a start, I cannot see that it is intended as a satire on Golden Age detective stories. At the time of publication, the Golden Age was hardly yet underway, so not really ripe for satire.

Neither do I feel it is particularly cliched, in fact it`s quite unusual for that or any other era. 

It`s probably true that Colonel Gore and/or his creator were not entirely free from the snobbery and prejudice of the time and place. A degree of snobbery can be detected in the character and possibly his creator. As regards prejudice, I personally think that`s probably there, but it`s not always wise to assume a writer agrees with statements made by fictitious characters he has created. In any case we are talking about maybe two sentences in a 273 page book.

Gore is not an infallible detective - he builds up one scenario after another in his pursuit of truth, most of them mistaken, some of them expounded at some length. It doesn`t bother me, but I can see some would find this frustrating.

The solution when it did come was a total surprise to me.

Included in this volume is a later Col Gore long/short story. In this one he has become a professional investigator. The writing is better and shows more maturity. It`s maybe not a classic but certainly enjoyable.