Death Under Snowdon (1954) by Glyn Carr

Like John Rowland, who I reviewed a title from earlier this week, Glyn Carr (real name Frank Showell Styles) is another author I have not read anything by for the best part of a decade. The only other mystery I have read by Carr is Murder on the Matterhorn (1951). His series sleuth was Abercrombie Lewker, who is an actor-manager who knows his Shakespeare well (quoting it on and off), is a keen mountaineer (which is heralded by the titles) and due to intelligence work he did during the war, he has become quite helpful to the police when a murder occurs close to hand (which happens a lot!). Death Under the Snowdon is Carr’s fifth mystery out of the fifteen published in the Lewker series. The final one printed in 1969 has the rather curious title choice of Fat Man’s Agony… There are also five mysteries the writer published under the name of Showell Styles.

Synopsis

‘Why is David Webhouse, M.P. so anxious to include Abercrombie Lewker, the famous actor-manager and private sleuth in his house-party in Wales? Is it merely to celebrate the knighthoods that they, with Charles Feckenham another guest, have recently received? Why is the atmosphere so tense? What is the situation between Clare, David’s second wife, and Feckenham, her cousin? A day’s climbing on Snowdon is arrange. Three knights on a knife-edge- but one fails to return.’

I should point that no one dies during the mountaineering element of this story, contrary to what the Fontana (the edition I am reading) blurb suggests above.

Overall Thoughts

The story kicks off with an announcement for Abercrombie Lewker’s forthcoming knighthood ‘for services to British Theatre’. David Webhouse’s weekend party invite soon follows, as a sort of a pre-event before they all go to get knighted together. The invite also reveals that Webhouse wants Lewker’s advice urgently, yet tantalisingly no more details are given at this point. I like how the opening starts with letters from the characters, as they help you to get a good sense of their personalities. I love Georgina, Lewker’s wife, as she does not take him too seriously:

‘Don’t you think “Sir Abercrombie Lewker” sounds a wee bit ponderous? Sure you haven’t been hiding away a first name all these years, something knightish like Rupert or Percy?’

Given his corpulent ego, I think this is probably a good thing. In addition, I enjoyed Carr’s more outside of the box way of describing Lewker’s physical appearance:

‘Mr Lewker’s car, which has been called one of the sights of London, resembles its fond owner. Like him, it is squat, majestic, and slightly obese, disdaining streamlining. It is thirty years since it left the workshops, but (again like Mr Lewker) it wears its seniority with a self-assurance that cares nothing for the snarls of overtaking sports models or the sneers of passing limousines.’

We are also told that his appearance could provoke strong responses from others:

‘That his passing occasioned chuckles in Chirk and laughter in Llangollen bothered him not at all. the commonality might not recognise him, might even find his appearance comical. Let them. He was Abercrombie Lewker.’

I wondered if these high self-esteem levels were a nod to the confident traditional amateur sleuths of the past. Nods to older detectives also come from more direct literary allusions such as in this example below:

‘So the odd business which was to spring into headline as “The Birthday Honour Murder” began with a journey. Mr Abercrombie Lewker […] would have been pleased by this circumstance; it was his contention that the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories began with journeys […]’

Lewker at times has a larger-than-life persona (although this does not become problematically intense) and this can be perceived through the way he talks and his social attitudes, which have a Regency-feel to them. For example, when he stops his car to attend to a child who has fallen down a hill and she begins to talk nineteen to the dozen, he interrupts her as they have not been introduced:

“Peace, ho!” bellowed Mr Lewker, cutting short the flow. “It is high time,” he went on less loudly, “that this conversation was placed on a proper basis. it is hardly etiquette for a young person to divulge so much of her aspirations, opinions and literary tastes to a gentleman to whom she has not been introduced.”

Early in the book the writer tries to establish the skills Lewker possesses which make him a good detective. However, there is at least one occasion where this falls flat. During Lewker’s drive to Webhouse’s home, he wonders why he has accepted this invite from a man he doesn’t like. The narrative makes a big show of him figuring out the reason:

‘Mr Lewker, who could deduce his own motives as well as those of others – a rare gift – decided that curiosity had led him to his pass.’

No kidding Sherlock! Curiosity is such an abundantly simple and obvious answer. The fact Lewker noted this is not rocket science nor a ‘rare gift’.

Once Lewker arrives, it does not take long for Webhouse to shape up as a prospective murder victim, with the motives for killing him mounting up. He is jealous of his second wife, whose affection may be directed elsewhere, he has a bitter ex-mother-in-law (from his first marriage), who keeps his house for him, and he is at odds with a neighbour due to his plans to support the building of hydro-electric power stations in the rural area. This latter reason is arguably an early example of an environmental motive for murder. It is not the earliest, which leaves me wondering which is the first example. Anyone know?

Despite Lewker’s confidence, he is not portrayed as a heroic figure when he and the others go to investigate an explosion and crash:

‘Mr Lewker, bringing up the rear, did not consciously make any inference coupling their present quest with anything that had gone before; his normally clear mind refused to anticipate – as though it had decided to close itself to the past. He hurried on up the steepening path, stumbling now and then because Feckenham’s shadowy figure in front of him obscured the flicker of the torch, feeling in his leg-muscles Snowdon’s revenge on middle-aged scramblers.’

I think these moments which puncture Lewker’s pomposity are important and make the story more entertaining for the reader. For instance, later in the investigation when Lewker and a sergeant are walking through an overgrown area it is said that:

‘Pitt, whose skin and bone were better adapted to threading arboreal tangles than was the actor-manager’s rotund figure, was the first to arrive at the boundary fence of the Plas Mawr demense. It was barbed wire, well concealed in the thickets, and it was at once apparent that he had discovered its presence by painful contact.

“For shame, sergeant!” boomed Mr Lewker severely, coming up in time to hear the tail-end of his execrations. “Remember these unfortunates in Plas Mawr, doomed to silent anxiety while we enjoy ourselves!”

Pitt spluttering, bundled through between the strands and landed knee-deep in a boggy stream. He drew some comfort from the fact that Mr Lewker found an even deeper and wetter landing, and waited with interest for his remarks. Mr Lewker, who maintained that Shakespeare provided a mot juste for every occasion, was not at a loss.

“May the devil damn thee black!” he gasped; and added, drawing on two other plays: “Thou scurvy patch! Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt Troubles the silver stream where England drinks!”

This is a visually comic scene, and I could imagine it being a fun one in a TV adaptation.

The murder scene concerns a damaged bridge, which has been detonated with explosives, leaving the characters and the readers with a grim corpse. Due to the geographical and social milieu there are plausible reasons for characters having access to explosives. A diligent investigation follows with Lewker working alongside Scotland Yard collecting evidence and trying to make theories from it. Some of this gets more technical, when they are looking at the explosion aspect of the crime and there is a long-ish section in which they make cases out against each suspect. Unfortunately, despite the enjoyable moments I have mentioned in my review, I found quite a bit of this book dull. Moreover, the reader does not require any of the technical stuff in order to arrive at the solution. I found it to be glaringly obvious from very early on and as such I found the narrative dragged. For the 1950s this type of solution feels a bit old hat. So unfortunately, I came away from this read underwhelmed.

Rating: 3.75/5

See also: The Puzzle Doctor at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel and Nick at The Grandest Game in the World have also reviewed this title.