This book is really unlike the other books I've reviewed by this publisher so far. For one, it was published in 1964 and so the world wars are over but in exchange for rationing struggles we get darker mental states and also a blacker sense of humor. And while it has the requisite drug use we also get explicit homosexual relationships, one even involving a central character--and no one seems to think much of it.
Julian Symons sounds like an interesting, curmudgeonly person: he was born into a very poor family in London in 1912 so by 14 he had to drop out of school and work to bring money in for his family. That probably wasn't such a terrible thing for him as he had a stutter and so was forced to attend a "school for backward children" (his phrase). As a result, he had to teach himself to read and write and, basically, everything else he wanted to know. He started working as a typist and clerk for an engineering firm, but soon was publishing stories and able to make a living doing that. He self-identified as a communist and hoped that that would allow him to avoid military service in WWII but no luck, and found himself in the Royal Armoured Corps (so he did something with tanks) for two years before being invalided out. Apparently he didn't have much respect for the cozy murder mystery authors like Agatha Christie yet still wrote murder mysteries that were structured pretty much identically to those classics: stately homes filled with hateful family members all fighting tooth and nail for an inheritance with bodies piling up. Yet there is no way you could confuse this book with, say, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Christie's first stately home mystery and features Hercule Peroit): Symon's characters have an absurd nastiness that makes you hate them all while you are laughing at them.
So, what's going on here? Well, it starts as they always do with an utterly ordinary child, Christopher--the narrator of the book--who has wonderful parents who both hate the mother's family because they are mean, insane and hurtful. So, cut off from that family they are also cut off from their wealth and so both have to work. They are getting by, but only barely. It's unclear what Christopher's father does for a living. Christopher tells us that his father boasts he is a "filmaker" but never says which films he's made. And what exactly does he do when making these films? Then, as must happen otherwise we wouldn't have a story, tragedy strikes: both Christopher's parents die in a plane crash and he is an orphan. He has no idea until a huge Daimler pulls up outside his friend's house and out steps a woman wearing a crushed cobalt blue gown and a black hat with a giant feather stuck into it. She informs Christopher that she is his grandfather's (mother's side) sister-in-law and the only relative he has willing to take him on--then adding that she is only doing it out of a sense of duty. They are going to live at Belting, which is the name of a ridiculously large "stately home" filled with crap "Lady W" (that is what Christopher calls her) has collected. This crap not only includes the ordinary stuff colonizers collect (masks, animal heads and skins, old weapons) but roomfuls of maps of places where battles were won. Lady W informs Christopher that he is going to earn his keep by finishing the book Lady W's husband was working on when he died. The book is an ode to Sir Wainwright's glory and immense skill at amassing wealth at the expense of others.
There are six people in the household:
Stephen Wainwright: The oldest living brother. He doesn't work but acts busy and feels aggrieved. Christopher hates him on sight. Stephen thinks he is far more clever than he is, and far better at keeping secrets than he is. At one point he thinks he's scored a verbal victory over Christopher and Christopher describes him as "tossing his hair like a girl" and smirking as he leaves the room. He never talks but screeches, or squeals, or whines.
Clarissa, Stephen's wife: She breeds bulldogs and looks like one, as she is short, thick and her legs are bowed. She is greedy and has an explosive temper. She considers herself very poorly used for having to "take care of" the old lady for YEARS so she is damned well going to get a big cut of the Wainwright wealth when the old lady finally dies. She actually does nothing to take care of the old lady or anything helpful at all, really, as she spends all her time in the "stables" with her dogs or at the dining table inhaling enormous plates of food. Clarissa always brays or bays. She is also prone to slapping her own thigh "as if with a riding crop" when frustrated.
Miles Wainwright: The youngest brother: He is short and fat and bald--not thin haired, but bald with a shining head. He is also inance and could be mistaken for an idiot as he laughs at inappropriate moments and amuses himself with odd spoonerisms and word plays that no one else appreciates. He used to be married to a wild acress/artist/heavy drinker and was for a brief moment an actor in Paris, but somehow his mother ("Mamma") reeled him home and back under her thumb. He allows himself one hour a day to secretly place bets on horses.
Lady Wainwright/Mamma: The formidable elderly lady who controls everything. She makes no secret that she has no respect for Stephen or Miles. The fact that they are still alive when their older brothers, David and Hugh, both died tragically in the war just proves how pathetic they are. According to Lady W logic, gods die young, which explains why she worships her dead husband and two oldest (dead) sons. David was her absolute favorite: the smartest, best looking, funniest--one of those people that is larger than life--well, according to Lady W, that is. Hugh looks almost exactly like David but just slightly lesser than: not as tall, not as slim, and not as handsome. But he is still sublime...Unless you talk to people outside the family who knew him and then he was an arrogant, lying user who never paid for anything and backrupted all those around them. David was a "writer" (he hadn't actually written anything because he died in the war, but if he had lived...) and Hugh was a "poet" (he, too, had never written any poems because he died in the war but if he had lived...). What about Miles? Pfft, says Lady W, actors aren't artists. At one point, when Christopher is about 16, he cannily tells Lady W he intends to be a poet and she beams--and tells him she will add him to her will, leaving him 20,000 pounds. (Keep in mind this is the mid-60's.) She also allows him to take over several rooms on the third floor of the house to read and write in so he can develop his artistry. (Stephen and Miles do not like that at all and from that point start keeping a very close eye on Christopher.)
Peterson: An elderly housemaid who takes care of Lady W. She's cranky and has a moustache.
Thorne: An elderly gardener and chauffer who is kind to Christopher if Lady W isn't looking.
Christopher is sent off to the local private school. The first time he sees it, he is AMAZED at how large and old it is. He is certain he is going to get an EXCELLENT education there. Then he discovers that it is no different from the education he was getting at ugly public school in London. This shift in perspective is a theme throughout the book. When Christopher finally breaks loose from Lady W's orbit and learns what other people have to say about the Wainwrights and about life in general, he realizes how far less wonderful Wainwrights are and how perverted their values are. He does well in school, gets scholarships and gets accepted into one of the Oxford colleges. (He doesn't say which, but it's the one all Wainwrights go to, so Lady W approves.) He finishes school and returns to Belting for the summer holiday before he has to leave for university in Fall...and then all hell breaks loose.
He's barely stepped through the door and the household is in an absolute panic: Lady W has received a letter from David! He's alive! He wasn't killed but captured by Germans and then traded to the Russians and tortured for years. Somehow he escaped and made his way across Germany and into France, and he's been living in Paris since! And he's coming home!!!
Well, Lady W is estatic as finally one of her good sons will be with her. Christopher, too, is pleased and intrigued. But Stephen and Miles are NOT happy: in fact, right before Christopher's eyes they transform from fools into scheming vipers hell bent on doing WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep this "interloper" ("Obviously it's not David!" shrieks Stephen....) from getting a cut of their inheritance. Unbelieveably, the first thing Lady W announces at dinner that night--before even seeing the guy claiming to be David--is that she is having her lawyer visit the following day as she has already rewritten her will so that it includes "David" and one of her primary heirs. Well, if Stephen and Miles (and Clarissa, of course) were angry before, now they are incandescent.
And then the man calling himself David arrives. Lady W recognizes him at once but Stephen and Miles are equally convinced he is a fraud--yes, he can describe perfectly all their shared secret childhood stories and he even has an appendix scar in exactly the same place (along with a lot of other scars that imply the torture stories are true) but he's been gone 20 years!? It simply can't be! Peterson thinks he's a fraud. Thorne thinks he's David. Who's right?
Then Thorne is killed--a bullet right in the middle of the forehead. What does that mean? Did he find out "David" was a fraud so "David" killed him? Or did Miles or Stephen or Clarissa kill him because he allied with David?
Then, as if things couldn't get any odder, the police show up and drop the real bomb: This isn't the first time the police have investigated this family for murder! And though they couldn't prove Hugh had killed his "business partner" (because Hugh had double crossed the guy and absconded with all the business profits and the guy wasn't going to stay quiet about it), the police inspector makes clear that this time, the murderer isn't going to buy their way out of the noose! And now the real sleuthing begins. Christopher follows clues to seaside magic shows, a boat ride to Paris, slummy hotels, alleys fill with drug dealers, art houses, more hotels, empty theatres showing an Ibsen play...you name it, if it's beatnick artsy illegal and dangerous, Christopher blunders through...and during his adventure unwittingly solves both murders, reveals the identity of "David" and falls in love! (Elaine, his sleuthing partner and crush, hates the Wainwrights with all her being as she is convinced that one of them--she doesn't care which one--killed her uncle and so destroyed her father twenty years ago. She's one of two journalists writing for a tiny "newspaper" in a tiny seaside town and wears glasses when she wants people to take her seriously. Christopher likes her curvy legs and fails to listen to her brilliant deductions because he is too busy trying to figure out how to softly lay his hand on her hand and then casually, as if by accident, start holding her hand.)
Epilogue: Stephen, Clarissa and Miles are feeling smug. Lady W is dead and they are the primary beneficiaries of the massive estate...but guess what? Lady W, like her son Miles, is a terrible with money and made many, many "unwise investments". In fact, there are so many debts, the bank owns everything and they all have to move out of Belting immediately. So... was that David? And if not, who was it and how did he know so much about the family? And who killed Elaine's uncle? And who killed Thorne? And what's going to happen to Miles and Stephen and Clarissa, now that they are penniless? And if Christopher can't go to university now because he can't afford it, what will he do?
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