The Maze (1932) by Philip Macdonald

The Maze is my book group read for June and Brad, a fellow book group member, has already posted his thoughts on his blog Ah Sweet Mystery. Whilst writing up this review, I decided to count how many books I have read by Macdonald so far, and the answer is 8. If I had to rank them, I would probably list them like this:

8^th place: Mystery in Kensington Gore (1932) (Published under his Martin Porlock penname)

7^th place: The Crime Conductor (1931)

6^th place: Murder Gone Mad (1931)

5^th place: X v Rex (1933)

4^th place:The Choice (1931)

3^rd place: The Rasp (1924)

2^nd place: The Rynox Mystery (1930)

1^st place: The Noose (1930)

1930 was obviously a good year for Macdonald’s writing!

Synopsis

‘The ultimate murder mystery – can you find the murderer before the detective?

Maxwell Brunton was found dead in his study – murdered beyond doubt. There were ten people in the house on the night of the murder, and at least seven of them had an adequate motive for murdering him. But Anthony Gethryn has only the evidence given at the Coroner’s inquest to work with. In other words YOU, the reader, and HE, the detective, are upon equal footing. HE solves the mystery. Can YOU?

The Maze, first published in 1932, is Philip MacDonald’s contribution to the conception of the totally logical puzzle – an exercise in ratiocination, as Poe called it – which so preoccupied detective story writers in the ‘Golden Age’ of the 1920s and ’30s. Written in the form of a court transcript, it is the ultimate puzzle novel, an absolutely fair test of the reader’s ability as a detective . . . an enthralling story – one of Philip MacDonald’s best.’

Overall Thoughts

As the synopsis points out above, this story is told through a series of documents, mostly a transcript of an inquest, as well as a few letters between the assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard and our amateur sleuth Anthony Gethryn. This is not the first time Macdonald experimented with the form of the detective story, but it is perhaps the most stylistically/structurally extreme. Maybe this is why the novel comes with an introduction from the author in which he describes the aim of the story:

‘I have given this book the subtitle of “An Exercise in Detection.” I have used the word “exercise” deliberately; I mean it to be an exercise not only upon my part, but upon the part of any reader who may have the tenacity to get through it. In parts Two, Three and Four of the book – the actual evidence of the witnesses upon the first time of their calling and the summing up of the Coroner – is contained all the information upon which Gethryn has to work. In other words, you, the reader, and he, the detective, are upon an equal footing. You know just as much as and no more than he knows. He finds out: could you have found out without his help?’

In my case the answer was a definite no, but I will come on to the solution and how it is arrived at, later in my review.

Philip Macdonald also talks about his annoyance with what he sees as “unfair play”:

‘I have frequently been annoyed – as any reader of the analytical type of detective fiction must have been annoyed – by books in which the detective holds an unfair advantage over the reader in that he has opportunities which the reader cannot share.’

The examples he gives are the sleuth going to London for several hours and the reader not knowing what transpires whilst they are there, and when the detective picks up an object and pockets it, but the reader is not told what it is. I can identify with Macdonald’s irritations, yet I don’t think his experiment in writing a “fair play” detective story, avoids annoying the reader. But more anon…

The opening details of the novel remind me of another Macdonald mystery called The Noose, in which Anthony Gethryn is also out of country on holiday when the murder and its subsequent investigation occur. Although in The Maze he also does all his sleuthing whilst on his trip, relying on the documents sent to him and asking for some photographs to corroborate his solution. The assistant commissioner’s introductory letter is friendly towards Anthony, but he does not contain many specific details about the case. Not even the name of the victim is given, so the first few interviews of the inquest are very important for filling in these types of details. Moreover, I don’t think the reader is too confused or disorientated.

Plan of Study

The men who are called to give evidence first, e.g. the police officer who was first on the scene and the police doctor, come across as competent professionals, but there is a lack of individuality to them. They sound the same and rather flat at that. If the dialogue had shown more character, then I think the prose would have been elevated. The questioning of the secretary was a bit better, as his personality peeps through when he tries to interrupt the coroner or when his answers go beyond what he has been asked. That is until questions are made concerning potential lady friends of the victim. The coroner is entertainingly waspish at times with truculent or recalcitrant witnesses. I found this rather pleasing as I am not fond of the trope of the obstructive witness. How witnesses and suspects take their oaths at the inquest add a level of differentiation to the characterisation, however as I will explore later, these moments were insufficient. Nevertheless, a succession of witnesses being questioned does add new layers of information concerning the case, and it didn’t feel painfully repetitive. I found the transcript portion of the book to be a quick read.

Plan of Second Floor

Due to the transcript nature of the story, I found it hard to pick up clues as you are being told information which has limited room for interpretation and there is little in the way of very useful non-verbal evidence to work with. It is difficult to anticipate some aspects of the case as a consequence. I also feel the evidence is engineered to lead to a dead end of sorts, that is until Gethryn gets to work.

It is only once we reach the coroner’s summing up that we get our first “maze” reference, and it is used to describe the baffling position they find themselves in:

“It seems to me that you and I are like men who have been wandering about a maze; not idly wandering, but wandering willy-nilly; wandering because, although we have been trying with all our might to reach the centre of the maze, we have never succeeded in finding its key and thereby been able to reach the centre.”

Discouraging, but true and I did wonder if the author stacks the evidence so that standard armchair detection won’t work. This is perhaps emphasised by the way in which the coroner waffles a lot during his summing up. The true solution requires a great deal of imagination, which is one of its problems. This is then compounded by the lack of deep characterisation, as the imaginative speculations don’t feel strongly backed up. I have more to say on this subject, but if you have not read the book then it is advised you don’t read the next and final section.

SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ THE FINAL PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK

So, the solution… Now in fairness Gethryn does notice that one witness could not have seen what they claimed to have seen. This is a sneaky but valid clue, as we do have the floor plans and from this maybe we could mull over why someone would lie. However, from this single fact Gethryn produces a great deal of supposition and his solution is grounded in stereotypical ideas about female beauty and how a lack of this would affect a woman’s mind:

‘Violet Burrage is, to say the least of it, entirely lacking in physical or mental charm; utterly devoid of genuine S. A., utterly devoid even, of purely surface animal attraction. If she had not been devoid of these things – if she had not been one of those unfortunate creations which, although they are roughly made in the shape of a woman, cannot be considered by the complementary sex as anything more interesting than a clumsy amateur-built robot – we should have heard of her during the inquest as a possible mistress for Brunton.’

I should point out that he decides she is excessively ugly before he has seen any picture of her. Moreover, from the bald dialogue in the inquest transcript he infers that Violet is ‘raging’ with ‘envy’ and hugely ‘jealous’ of the women Brunton does have affairs with. From here he assumes that her anger fuelled her unplanned murder upon him. But where are all these emotions? They’re certainly not on the page. The dialogue is too flat for that. This is where the minimal characterisation undermines the mystery.

Gethryn’s manner of explanation is dense, yet the worse part of it is his cruelty in the way he describes the killer. Instead of feeling sympathy for the victim as Gethryn seems to, you feel sorry for Violet, and you also have a strong urge to bump off Gethryn. Here he is talking about the moment the victim first notices the killer in his study (a scene Gethryn conjures up purely from his imagination):

‘Instead of the regal, entirely sophisticated and enticingly apparelled beauty of Mary Elizabeth Lamort, he sees – crazy though it all must seem – the squat, undersized, certainly hideously clothed (I wonder what she did wear, Lucas?) entirely sexless ugliness of his kitchenmaid.’

The bit in the parenthesis is in poor taste to say the least. It almost feels like he is snickering at the killer. Gethryn goes on to describe the murderer as having a ‘poor, muddled, sick little mind’ and he sums Violet up as:

‘[…] one of those unhappy young women with an abnormally unpleasing exterior, an abnormally uninteresting personality, a subnormal education so rudimentary that her mind can find no solace for her bodily troubles, and an abnormal sex impulse. She is, in short and in the vulgar tongue, a woman whose very existence is repulsive to men and a woman whose very existence is centred on the desire to be attractive to men.’

His psychological profile is based on little to nothing from the transcript. The lack of education might be inferred from how she pronounces words, but the rest of it says a lot more about Gethryn than it does Violet. His case requires him to imagine and theorise a lot and overall, his solution leaves an unpleasant taste in the reader’s mouth. So, all in all I don’t feel bad for having missed this solution.

Rating: 3.5/5