John Penn is a joint pseudonym of Palma Harcourt (1917 – 1999) when she wrote with husband Jack H. Trotman. Harcourt wrote espionage thrillers under her own name. Under the Penn pseudonym she wrote more traditional detective stories. George Thorne, a Detective Superintendent, and Dick Tansey, a Chief Inspector, both in the Thames Valley police, were their series characters. Their first joint venture though featured Chief Inspector David Taylor of Scotland Yard.
Notice of Death (Collins, 1982), published as An Ad for Murder by Scribner in 1983, is an interesting tale of a retired Army major named Tom Cheryl, living quietly in an Oxfordshire village with his wife Aileen and his boxer named Sal. Both of their daughters were grown and launched and he could do largely as he wished. He was startled and not amused one day to find an ad in the book section of the daily newspaper stating “Coming soon – The Death of Major Cheryl.” The ad continued weekly for a month during which Cheryl had a traffic accident and he grew increasingly exasperated. He approached Scotland Yard, circumventing the local police, and requested an investigation.
Chief Inspector David Taylor acknowledged something was going on but there was little to investigate. The ads were placed via standard language on the letterhead of a well-known publicity firm, which denied all knowledge of the ads. There were no witnesses to the car accident; although a motorcyclist with a yellow helmet was seen nearby, there was no evidence to show he was implicated. A romantic attachment developed between Taylor and Major Cheryl’s younger daughter, giving Taylor a reason to continue looking into things long after any real reason existed. And then a package containing a bomb exploded, killing a bystander.
This is an original story with nice description about life in a village and its assortment of residents and an attention-getting introduction. Readers who like fair play mysteries will find this one frustrating. No one including the investigating detective has all of the information until the last chapters. The motive is unexpected but makes sense once the complete background is presented. I liked it, despite the lack of full disclosure, and I plan to read more books by Penn.
The Collins first edition is quite hard to locate. I apparently have one of the rare copies, acquired from an estate sale with several boxes of UK mysteries dozens of years ago. The US edition though is easily found on the secondary market.