Nigel FitzGerald (1906-1981) was an Irish actor who starred in detective films and served as president of the Irish Actor’s Equity Association for a time. He wrote a dozen mysteries between 1953 and 1967, all published by Collins. Only half of them were also released in the United States. His series characters were Inspector (later Superintendent) Duffy and Alan Russell, an actor-manager. Sometimes both appeared in the same book.
A number of reviewers have given FitzGerald some consideration in the past few years. When I began researching his work, I found the following posts by contemporary bloggers:
- Midsummer Malice https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2017/03/nigel-fitzgeralds-midsummer-malice.html
- Suffer a Witch https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2014/10/enter-first-witch-suffer-witch-1958-by.html
- The Candles Are All Out https://classicmystery.blog/2019/07/31/the-candles-are-all-out-1960-by-nigel-fitzgerald/
- Affairs of Death https://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2022/07/affairs-of-death-1967-by-nigel.html
- The Candles Are All Out https://ahsweetmystery.com/2023/09/16/slay-fever-the-candles-are-all-out-by-nigel-fitzgerald/
FitzGerald seems to be a late Golden Age stylist who incorporates some of the psychological aspects of the 1960s, a transitional sort of writer not always successful in the melding of the two.
The Student Body (Collins, 1958) was cited as a good locked room mystery, which made my decision on where to start easy. Set in Dublin in June, two undergraduates of Christchurch College, Jer Milne and Don Carton, are off to celebrate passing their exams and to meet a couple of actresses working in the city for a few days. Much alcohol in various forms is consumed, which is the only rationalization I can find for their subsequent actions. The young ladies recognize a lone gentleman at the bar as the same one they saw the previous week near a London cathedral where a Hungarian baroness was stabbed. Convinced they are looking at a killer, the students consult Aidan Roberts, a journalist, who is also drowning his cares. The trio proceeds to impersonate the local Garda, kidnap the putative murderer, and smuggle him into Carton’s rooms in the university to question him. A university lecturer named Dermot Grey and his sister Nuala Norden join the proceedings.
At some point the potential consequences of kidnapping and assault begin to weigh on the group. Simply letting their victim go does not appeal to them, so they decide to go out for food and more alcohol while they consider their options. They tie the accused assassin to a chair and lock the door and sprinkle talcum on the floor in front of the door. On their return, they find him dead with a knife in his back. All of the windows remain secured, locks on the door were undisturbed, and the talc in the front of the door was untouched.
More ill-judged actions follow and eventually Inspector Duffy comes onto the scene. At this point the story shifts gears into a more standard police procedural.
My first reaction was sheer amazement at the outright stupidity of Roberts, Carton, Grey, and Milne. While suspension of disbelief is needed to read crime fiction, I could not summon enough in this case. My next reaction was admiration of the very fine locked room set-up. Unfortunately I figured out part of it.
Set during the Cold War of the late 1950s, when the fear of communism seeped into the most unexpected places, this story could not easily take place twenty years earlier or later. It shows what occupied the thoughts of the general populace then.
I am still unclear on how Inspector Duffy reached some of his conclusions. Either I missed clues or FitzGerald simply hurried things along. He writes beautifully, but his plotting is worrisome. I wonder if his books are among those that don’t translate well to later generations. I have two more FitzGerald titles on my TBR stack and hope to get to them early in the new year and will know more then.