The story is narrated by Patience Thumm, daugther of ex-Inpsector Thumm of New York Police. Elihu Clay, a businessman, requests the Thumms to investigate his partner Dr. Ira Fawcett, brother of Senator Joel Fawcett for fraud. Patience and Thumm stay at Elihu Clay's place trying to investigate the Fawcetts. They end up investigating a murder-murder of Senator Fawcett. Senator Fawcett is found murdered in his home. Who murdered him and why? Aaron Dow newly released prisoner from County jail is suspected. Though Patience logically proves(?) that Dow could not have committed the murder, nobody listens to her and Dow is arrested for the murder. Drury Lane is a famous retired Shakespearean actor who also investigates cases. Drury doesn't actively get involved in the case until the end.
Thumms go to investigate something, when their investigation is stopped for some reason, why don't they come back home? How long will they stay in somebody's house doing nothing? Don't they have anything else to do? And what happened to their initial investigation?
Patience is very observant, logical and is good at deductive reasoning and proves her skills early on. It has all the elements of a great detective story, mysterious past, spies, mysterious stranger leaving the premises, footprint in the ash etc. There are some codes to solve. But you cannot solve the code. You need to wait for Drury to do it. I lost interest somewhere on the way. I hardly ever abandon a book and not losing interest is never the reason. So I burrowed away to dig up a diamond in the end.
The finale is interesting, everything is summed up nicely, Drury Lane sets up an electrifying scene, explains the whole thing in a logical way eliminating suspects and finally revealing the murderer. If not for anything, the climax alone makes this book worth reading. I did not guess the killer.
I do wish Patience Thumm had more to do. Despite her intelligence, observation skills and deductive reasoning, she just solves the minor things, leaving the major things for Drury Lane. There are some bits of humour but very very little, after all it is the Tragedy of Z.
The book was orginally published in 1933 under the pseudonym of Barnaby Ross. I borrowed it from the Open Library.
My post for Crime Fiction Alphabet letter T.
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