Review: The Middle of Things

The Middle of Things by J.S. Fletcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fletcher was a good mystery writer, and this one is engaging and well written for most of its length, but doesn't stick the landing.

Viner, a "young gentleman of means and leisure" living in a nice part of London, returns home from an evening walk via a narrow passage between houses that offers a short cut. There he finds the dead body of a man who recently moved into the area, who he knows by sight. He saw a ragged-looking man running from the passage shortly before. The ragged man is picked up trying to pawn the man's ring to buy much-needed food, and found to be, by complete coincidence, an old schoolmate of Viner's from Rugby, down on his luck. (I haven't tagged the book "plot relies on coincidence" because, although there are some coincidences, they're not vital to the plot.) Viner is convinced he's innocent, for reasonable reasons (there was plenty of cash on the victim, which is missing, and if the suspect had cash to buy food he would have done so rather than try to pawn the ring, which he says he just snatched up from the ground in passing, thinking the victim was drunk).

It turns out the murdered man was also carrying some papers relevant to the succession to a noble title, and Viner and the several lawyers he involves (mostly in an attempt to clear his old schoolmate) are convinced that this is the motive for the crime. Multiple witnesses emerge from all directions with important clues, and the group gradually piece together the mystery. There's no one detective; Viner, a couple of the lawyers, Viner's sharp elderly aunt (who's addicted to murder mysteries) and a couple of other characters all contribute to the eventual solution.

Unfortunately, while the working out of clues and red herrings is engaging and well written, the resolution is at least two kinds of cheat, and not "fair play." The murderer is barely mentioned until right at the end, and was introduced early on only as someone with a minor and conventional function. Among a huge cast of minor characters, most of the others are more noticeable and memorable. Actual spoilers for whodunnit in the spoiler tags, because I want to complain about a plot point that makes no sense whatsoever: (view spoiler)[The murderer turns out to have a house that backs onto the alley where the murder took place, and to have done it as he showed the victim out of his own back gate. Which is fine, but why, then, does he not just go back into his house? Why does he instead go out of the alley in such a way that the man who becomes the prime suspect sees him? Why is he muffled up with his face hidden, something that is distinctive to this character and that another witness sees in a completely different context, but nobody who lives near him ever notices him doing it? The answer is obviously "so that the suspect can mention a plausible alternative suspect and it can be confirmed that such a man exists and was seen with the victim," but that's a book reason, not a reason reason. (hide spoiler)]

Those issues, and the thin romance that is also a solution to an impasse that I saw coming fifteen miles off, lost the book its fourth star. It's one of those that's enjoyable right up until the end, but then kind of falls apart.

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