Morna Doris MacTaggart Brown (1907-1995) wrote several novels under that name before adopting the pseudonym Elizabeth Ferrars, which became E. X. Ferrars in the United States. Her first mystery was published in 1940, the initial appearance of Toby Dyke, a journalist in Devon, and the last was published posthumously in 1997. Her output was impressive, both in quantity and duration. She wrote mostly stand-alones but she did create series about Dyke; Andrew Basnett, a retired professor of botany; Virginia and Felix Freer, an estranged married couple; Police Chief Rapos on the island of Madeira, and Superintendent Ditteridge. She also wrote short crime fiction including a half dozen stories about a retired sleuth named Jonas P. Jonas. Crippen & Landru produced an anthology with seventeen of her short stories in 2012.
She was a founding member of the Crime Writers’ Association in 1953 and in the early 1980s was given a Lifetime Achievement award by the CWA.
In his Mystery Scene review of E. X. Ferrars: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Gina Macdonald (McFarland, 2011),Jon L. Breen states: “Morna Doris McTaggart (1907-1995) …. was one of the best and most unfairly neglected of the generation of classicists who emerged at the end of the Golden Age of Detection, a puzzle-spinner in the Christie mode who was ahead of her time in her strong women characters and views on gender relationships.”
The Clock That Wouldn’t Stop (Doubleday Crime Club, 1952) is one of the many stand-alone mysteries Ferrars turned out. It is dark compared to the Basnet and Freer titles I read earlier, although not to be considered noir by any means. Murder, arson, and blackmail abound in a story briskly told in less than 200 pages. The Chivers Press edition I read included a foreword by Catherine Aird.
Alex Summerhill is better known as Alice Summers, a warm, kind counselor to all who seek her help via her newspaper advice column. Alex takes her job, frivolous as it appears, quite seriously and she carefully secures readers letters away from prying eyes.
Alex takes a bundle of letters with her on the trip to Sharnmouth, where her long-time secretary is planning her wedding. Alex is stunned to find among them an accusation of blackmail. The references in the letter are unfamiliar and she can only assume the original letter was intercepted somewhere. She is immediately suspicious of her new secretary but she doesn’t have time to think about it, as upon her arrival to the boardinghouse run by Henrietta’s aunt, she is startled by the collection of peculiar people gathered there. Henrietta is stressed, her aunt is behaving oddly, and Alex realizes that Henrietta’s aunt wrote the letter accusing her of blackmail, which leaves Alex desperately wanting to see the original letter in which apparently the aunt admitted to murder.
There is a vaguely incomplete feeling to this book, despite a competent structure with plenty of misdirection and the eventual identification of the multiple culprits. I was left with the sense that there should have been more to the story, although it offers bizarre characters and quite enough criminal activity to keep multiple police officers busy. Not one of Ferrars’ better efforts, probably to be expected considering the speed with which she wrote. I do want to read more of her stand-alone mysteries to see how they compare with this one.