Close Quarters

Close Quarters is Michael Gilbert’s (1912 – 2006) first novel. It is also the first in his Inspector Hazlerigg series.  I have never read anything by Gilbert before, but I do intend to read other novels by him.  This novel was a strange thing. I felt like it was set-up to be a perfectly familiar “golden age” mystery placed in a typical English Cathedral setting.  There is a campus, which is locked at night, a bunch of quirky intellectual canons and vergers, and associated gardeners. The dean of the whole place is fairly decent at being the dean, the reader supposes, but not too excellent at knowing how to deal with attempted murder and the like. The dean calls his nephew hoping for an unofficial, but still police-involved, assistance.

Naturally, I was anticipating a bland and fairly technical police procedural set in Melchester Cathedral Close. I am hardly an expert on the United Kingdom, but I feel like Melchester is fictional – but it might be an homage, of sorts, to Thomas Hardy?  In any case, I think this novel contains at least three maps of the place. The story takes place in 1937 and while folks that know their history would expect some impingement of world events upon the story, there is none.

The novel has a lot – extreme? – amount of technical details. Probably, there is too much technical “investigation” than a decent mystery novel should have.  The exact placement at the exact time of so many characters is exceedingly tedious and aggravating. Does it all work out? Did Gilbert (or his detectives) get it right or are there unintentional errors? I do not know because, honestly, though I followed along as best I could, if I lost the thread of who-was-where-when, I did not go back and try to gain the data. Thinking about it, though all of this plays absolute importance in the deduction, it just is not gripping enough to drag a reader through all of it. I will say, however, that if Gilbert did plot all of this out – he really is impressive. I would love to see his notes when he was writing this storyline.

Did I mention at the start of the book there is a bit of an index listing the dramatis personae of the novel – the Householders of Melchester Close.  I called it an index, because it is not a list. Each character is given a rather significant amount of detail – even if it plays zero rôle in the story.  For example:

• The Rev. Canon Trumpington – B.A. Late scholar of Wadham College, Oxford. B.A. (2nd Class Lit. Hum). 1900. Principal of Melset Theological College, Canon of Melchester, Unmarried.
• C. S. Mickie, Mus.Doc., F.R.C.O. – Organist and Choirmaster of Melchester. Until 1930 assistant organist, Starminster. Married. No children.

There are seventeen characters listed in this fashion.

And there is also a crossword puzzle. Yes, the reader gets to solve it with two of the canons – each clue, puzzled out and agonized over. This does provide a major part of the storyline, but my word, I feel like this novel is less for entertainment and more for working the reader a bit.  Chapter Thirteen is entitled “Crossword Puzzle” and it has 31 clues – I suppose the reader could try it out, first, on their own, before following the guesses made by the canons, but by this point, I think most readers are worn out.

There is a lot of deciding the times and places of the characters. In fact, that is the majority of the novel. So, when the first red herring comes upon the reader, he feels like he certainly is at the end of the matter and the Scotland Yard chaps are about to solve the situation. But wait! What are all these pages left to still be read? Well, because even if we have a red herring and more eliminations of suspects and theories – we never really looked into motive! So, it feels like we are constantly having to start over, remind ourselves where everyone was at what time, and now also think of motives. Meanwhile, the little interferences and spats between the canons and members of the Close are pulling the detectives, and reader, this way and that with their un/helpfulness.

The only work slightly comparable is definitely Michael Innes’ Death at the President’s Lodging. In fact, there are a lot of bits that really do feel like these works are very close.  Closer than they ought to be? Who can say. Definitely Gilbert’s is a lot more rigorous, I think. Or maybe I just feel dragged through the mud. Needless to say, the Dean’s nephew calls in Inspector Hazlerigg, who really does not have much of a personality. I get the idea that he is a larger, athletic fellow. However, he does not really do much to distinguish himself in this novel – besides being the authority of the Yard.

There is a lot of coming and going to Evensong. There is a choir and they are dressing for sessions and then disrobing afterward. There are tea times and there are flower beds. The detectives are going to have a smoke and pull out their papers and go over the case – again.

Is there wit? Yes, there are some briefly funny moments. It is not all serious Churchmen and Yard work. Unfortunately, the wit is forgotten already. I couldn’t come up with any examples of the humor even though I only finished the novel yesterday. I think that the humor is sunk by the massive amount of work Gilbert puts in with the timing of the circumstances.

Overall, this is a good read. It is not a story that all readers will enjoy. There is too much detail work, maybe there are just too many characters?  Sure, Golden Age mystery readers should read it. They should also expect to keep notes about the characters, I guess. The author certainly did a lot of work here – he must have painstakingly clarified every detail – every minute of his many characters. However, as a novel, this sort of detail is not always very entertaining.

3 stars