This edition published 2019 by
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB
Originally published in 1950 by Hodder & Stoughton, London
Copyright © 1950 Michael Gilbert
Introduction copyright © 2019 Martin Edwards
Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7123 5297 0
eISBN 978 0 7123 6469 0
Front cover © NRM/Pictorial Collection/Science & Society Picture Library
Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London
Introduction
Smallbone Deceased was first published in 1950, and few British detective stories during the rest of the Fifties came close to matching it in terms of quality. This was Michael Gilbert’s fourth novel, and the first in which he drew extensively on his first-hand knowledge of life inside a London law firm. The book blends in masterly fashion an authentic setting, pleasingly differentiated characters, smoothly readable prose, and a clever puzzle.
The opening scene, set at a dinner in a Holborn restaurant, offers a witty introduction to partners and staff of Horniman, Birley and Craine, “the Gordon Selfridge of solicitors, different departments to suit all tastes and purses”. Several of those present will shortly become suspects in a murder case when a dead body is found at the firm’s premises at Lincoln’s Inn, concealed within a hermetically sealed deed box. Also in attendance is Henry Bohun, “the very newest thing in solicitors”, a brilliant and slightly mysterious young man with a flair for amateur detection.
When the novel first came out, its publishers (Hodder & Stoughton) hailed it as “a connoisseur’s piece”, and they were not exaggerating. Unfortunately, the book appeared before the Crime Writers’ Association (of which Gilbert became a founder member) was formed, and thus there was no opportunity for the story to compete for a CWA Dagger, although its quality was recognised by reviewers in Britain and the US. In A Catalogue of Crime, Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described it as Gilbert’s “masterwork”, while Julian Symons included the book in The Hundred Best Crime Stories (1958). Similarly, H.R.F. Keating included it in his own survey of the “hundred best” crime and mystery novels, published in 1987. Three years later, the CWA featured the novel in its own “hundred best” list, and so subsequently did the Mystery Writers of America.
Keating described the book as a fine example of the classic detective story—two floor plans are supplied in the finest Golden Age tradition—and went so far as to compare the plot with “Agatha Christie at her best; as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings”. He pinpointed as an incidental pleasure Gilbert’s “depiction of Britain’s immediate post-war years, with an electricity cut playing a notable part in the establishing of alibis”, and his stylish, urbane way with words, while arguing plausibly that touches of realism in the narrative “make you feel this ingenious tale is a good deal more closely related to real life than your average detective story”.
Gilbert had begun his crime writing career with Close Quarters, a detective puzzle in the classic style of the Golden Age whodunit, and followed his debut with two lively thrillers—an early sign of the determination to keep trying something different that became his trade mark as a crime writer. Chief Inspector Hazlerigg played a part in each story, as he does in Smallbone Deceased. This is not, however, a novel which concentrates on police procedure.
Henry Bohun’s sleuthing is an even more significant component of the book than Hazlerigg’s official investigation. Bohun is a likeable and memorable individual who featured in no other novels. Intriguingly, he had made his debut in Gilbert’s very first published story, “Weekend at Wapentake”, which appeared in (of all journals) Good Housekeeping on 16 October 1948; in that story, he was already a partner in the firm. An appendix in John Cooper’s collection of Gilbert radio plays, The Man Who Couldn’t Sleep, reveals that Bohun appeared in a total of nine short stories and a six-part radio thriller.
Hazlerigg looks rather like a farmer: “the only remarkable thing about this generally unremarkable person was his eyes, which were grey, with the cold grey of the North Sea.” He seemed destined to become a major series character, but although he featured in nineteen short stories as well as six novels, eventually he made way for a host of freshly created protagonists, both professional detectives and amateurs who stumble across crime. Gilbert’s career as a novelist lasted for more than half a century—his final book, the aptly titled Over and Out, was published in 1998—yet throughout that time, he kept ringing the changes, and never wrote a long series featuring a single “great detective”. This reflects a splendid determination to avoid the formulaic, but it may also explain why, for all the critical acclaim he received, he never quite became a household name. Crime fans have a taste for series, and for characters whose cases they can follow over a long period of time.
Michael Francis Gilbert (1912–2006) was born in Billingshay in Lincolnshire, and studied law at London University. He also had a spell as a teacher at a cathedral school, which supplied him with the background for his first novel as well as funds to complete his legal education. The Second World War interrupted his work on Close Quarters as well as his attempts to establish himself as a solicitor, but in 1947 he joined a highly respected Lincoln’s Inn law firm, Trower, Still and Keeling, becoming a partner in 1953; he remained with the practice until his retirement in 1983. His clients included Raymond Chandler, who became a close personal friend; when, towards the end of his life, Chandler was drinking heavily and struggling to cope after the death of his wife, Gilbert made strenuous efforts to help the great American novelist to resolve the financial difficulties he was facing.
The Swedish Academy of Detection made Gilbert a Grand Master in 1981, and the Mystery Writers of America followed suit six years later. He earned the CWA Diamond Dagger in 1994 to recognise his outstanding contribution to the crime genre, and was appointed a CBE in 1980. In all, he wrote thirty novels and 185 short stories, as well as work for radio, television, and stage. He served as Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, and was a proud member of the Detection Club for more than half a century. He was one of the leading lights of British mystery fiction throughout the second half of the twentieth century, and—to borrow a lawyer’s phrase—there can be no reasonable doubt that his best books deserve to be ranked as crime classics.
Martin Edwards
Smallbone Deceased
The characters in this novel (with the exception of eminent Counsel mentioned on page 56) are entirely imaginary and have no relation to any living person.
“There is no point in concealing the fact that London solicitors work in certain well-known and well-defined areas; nor would much purpose have been served by giving these fictitious names. The fact, however, that a number of regrettable incidents are supposed to have taken place in Lincoln’s Inn must not be interpreted as any reflection on the many and reputable firms who practise there: nor must any mention of the officials or functionaries of that Inn be taken as a reference to the present holders of those offices.”