Brian Flynn (1885-1958) is another of those forgotten authors from the first part of the 20^th century whose work has been resurrected after diligent effort on the part of a few people. It doesn’t help that books were rarely reprinted then and initial print runs were small, which means finding a copy to read, much less to reprint, can be challenging, if not impossible.

In addition to writing, Flynn was a Special Constable on the Home Front during World War I; a government accountant; a teacher of accounting, math, and speech; and an amateur actor. His 57 mysteries were published beginning in 1927; nearly all had private detective Anthony Lotherington Bathurst as the leading investigator.

With that many books, it’s hard to know which are the gems and which to avoid. Character story arcs are rare in Golden Age mysteries and it’s easy to move around a series without missing a vital development. So I consulted The Puzzle Doctor, the authority on Flynn who wrote the introduction to the 40 Flynn reprints issued by Dean Street Press. His article on his favorite Flynns helped narrow my selection nicely. I settled on The Padded Door (John Long, 1932; Dean Street Press, 2020), mostly because of the promise of an amazing plot twist. See the full list here: https://classicmystery.blog/2024/10/21/top-ten-brian-flynn-titles-times-two-sort-of/

The story has a promising start. Leonard Pearson was an unsavory human being, roundly despised by almost everyone including his butler whose lamentations on how far his status has fallen by working for Pearson are heartfelt. Pearson was officially a moneylender and generally believed to be a blackmailer, so no one is surprised and a few people delighted when he was murdered in his country home. The police of course had to investigate no matter how much they privately wanted to congratulate the killer. They soon settled on Captain Hilary Frant, who was known to have visited Pearson that night and was heard to utter threats against him.

Frant’s family hired a well-known defense attorney and sent for Anthony Bathurst, determined to leave no stone unturned to exonerate Hilary. The case is cold by the time Bathurst gets involved but he determinedly examines every clue and every lead. When Mr. Justice Heriot, the notorious hanging judge, was announced as presiding over the trial, everyone feared the worst for accused.

The plot twist as promised occurs midway and did indeed startle me, a jaundiced mystery reader of several decades. I can’t say much about it without giving away the surprise. The resolution to the story is creative but reasonable. I liked this one better than the first Flynn I read and I will continue sampling the series in the hope I will find more like it. Recommended!