The Sea Mystery by Freeman Wills CroftsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'll start by saying this: you don't read a Freeman Wills Crofts book for the characters.
In particular, you don't read one to enjoy the quirky antics of an unusual detective. This is not Poirot with his little moustache and his tisanes, or Lord Peter Wimsey with his monocle and his collection of rare books, or even Holmes with his indoor target practice and his shag tobacco kept in a Turkish slipper. In an earlier review, I've referred to Inspector French as more of a plot device than an actual character, and while this is perhaps too harsh, it contains a lot of truth. The author was an engineer, and he designed French as a crime-solving machine, with no extraneous parts.
French's appearance is never described, at least in this book. We don't learn his hair or eye colour, the style of his clothes, his height, what he likes to eat, drink, or smoke. He appears to have no interests outside his work, and no distinctive possessions or non-professional associates. The existence of his wife is referred to in a single sentence, but she plays no role (in one of the other books, she does act as his sounding board in one scene). He is Everyman, if Everyman is a dogged policeman who solves crimes perpetrated by criminals more clever than him by systematically following every clue to its absolute end.
Except that, in this case, he rebukes himself for not doing so sooner with one key line of inquiry, which almost leads to disaster. It also takes him quite a bit longer than it took me to click to a key point about the evidence ((view spoiler)). The author did at least know that watching a perfectly efficient machine work flawlessly is not interesting for very long.
What is interesting in a Freeman Wills Crofts story is the intricate and original crime and how it's unravelled, and this book is no exception. Starting with a body found in an estuary inside a packing case of unusual dimensions, it progresses rapidly via a combination of sound logic and thorough investigation by French; he figures out where and when the case must have been put into the water, how that was done, where the case came from, finds a case of disappearance of two men that would account for the body (but where is the other man?), rounds up a set of suspects and investigates each of them thoroughly. Because he isn't quite thorough enough, there's a scene of considerable risk and tension before he brings the case to its conclusion.
If the thing you enjoy most about a detective story is the bits that aren't the detective story, this one will disappoint you. But if you enjoy the puzzle aspect, with a judicious amount of detail about the beauty of the locations, a few technical details and some clever work by both the criminal and the detective, those parts are excellent of their type.
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