Quick Curtain by Alan Melville

Title: Quick Curtain
Author: Alan Melville
Publication: British Library Crime Classics/Poisoned Poisoned Pen Press, paperback, originally published in 1934
Genre: Mystery
Setting: England

Description: It’s opening night at the Grosvenor Theatre for Blue Music, a musical produced by the impressive (at least to himself) impresario, Douglas B. Douglas, and everything is going well until actor Hilary Foster pulls out what is meant to be a prop revolver and aims it at the leading man. Unfortunately, the gun was loaded and Brandon Baker is killed. Foster hangs himself moments later. Fortunately, a Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Wilson, in the audience that night with his son Derek, a reporter, is there to take control of the situation and to investigate the murder. Inspector Wilson sees through the murderer’s attempt to hide his tracks but he needs his irreverent son to help him solve the mystery.

My Impression: In his introduction to this entertaining mystery, Martin Edwards explains that Dorothy L. Sayers herself was the original reviewer but thought the book was a parody because it did not follow the traditional rules of crime fiction; she did not appreciate sardonic and amusing mysteries. Maybe it was over the top but I found it very entertaining, once Opening Night and its murders were over and Inspector Wilson, senr., and his son Derek, junr., start working on the case together.  I think readers familiar with the Golden Age of Detection Fiction or even other novels of the era will feel in the know.

Douglas B. Douglas does not let the mere fact of two of his actors dying on opening night prevent him from recasting and putting the show on again weeks later:

Mr. Douglas lit a third cigar.

“I tell you, it’s a matter of complete indifference to me whether Gwen Astle, Mary Queen of Scots, or Boadicea plays the part,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’m not so sure that the other two wouldn’t make a darn’ sight better shape at it than that hennaed hussy. Pity they’re not available. They had better legs, I’m sure, and Mary had a pretty snappy soprano, I’ve heard. Which your Gwen certainly hadn’t. I tell you I don’t care whether she stays in or walks out. If you want her to stay in, use your sex-appeal about it. I’ll save mine for something more important.

The funniest part of the book is when Inspector Wilson’s son goes to the countryside to do some sleuthing in a town identified in a clue. He finds more than he bargained for, and sends multiple telegrams to his father, back in London, trying to disguise his activities to the local postmistress by using Old Testament characters as code. This makes it hard for his father (and the postmistress, avidly trying to decipher his missives so she can gossip to everyone about them) to completely follow him but he acts so suspiciously he gets himself arrested. Despite their peculiarities, the Wilsons are determined to solve the crime and their antics (and banter) are what make the mystery:

"Well," said Mr. Wilson, settling himself comfortably on the dressing-room settee and swaying the glass of champagne in his hand in a contented manner, "well . . .  this is all rather like the last chapter of a mystery novel, isn't it?  You know . . . chaps. one to twenty-seven - utter and complete bafflement (if there's such a word), and then chap. twenty-eight . . . along comes the brilliant detective and reveals in a few well-chosen words that the person who did the dirty deed was none other than the deceased man's Great Aunt Pauline, and that the whole thing was perfectly obvious from the time the string of pearls was found secreted in the wing of the butler's parrot at Margate."

I read this for Lory’s Reading the Theatre Challenge. Of course, I couldn’t help thinking of the 2021 real-life situation in which Alec Baldwin thought he was practicing with a prop gun on the set of a western but it had real bullets and the cinematographer was fatally shot. That case is going to trial in July.

This was also my sixth book for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Challenge.

Source: Library