Malcolm Gair was the pseudonym of Scottish author and historian John Dick Scott (1917-1980). He became Assistant Principal at the Ministry of Aircraft Production in London during the war, and joined the Cabinet Office as an official war historian in 1944. He was literary editor of The Spectator from 1953-1956, and went to the United States in 1963 to become editor of the World Bank’s periodical Finance and Development. Scott published his first straight novel, The Cellar, in 1947, followed by The Margin in 1949. The Way to Glory was published in 1952, followed by The End of an Old Song in 1954. His last novel, A Pretty Penny, was published in 1963. He published six crime fiction novels under the name Malcolm Gair between 1957 and 1962, all of them with private investigator Mark Raeburn.
Sapphires on Wednesday (Collins, 1957; Doubleday Crime Club, 1957) introduces Raeburn as he leaves his job with an unethical detective agency in London. An attorney friend sets him up in his first job as his own boss with a wealthy but unpleasant lady named Madame Palatino, who retains Raeburn to retrieve a sapphire necklace from her brother Milo, who is even more unappealing. The two have a habit of playing jokes on each other, the lady said, and Milo had taken a quite valuable family heirloom. While the joke sounded a lot more like larceny to Raeburn, since the task involves an all-expense paid trip to New York, Raeburn sets his reservations aside, smoothly retrieves the necklace, and then finds complications in New York, where he meets a Palatino by marriage who adds more wrinkles to the unexpected situation.
This story offers a solid enough plot with a couple of surprises. I found the main character unusual in that mid-century UK private investigators are not common in crime fiction, while they abound on this side of the Atlantic. Raeburn is a transitional private investigator, more Donald Lamm than Sam Spade but not quite as cerebral as John Marsh Tanner or John Francis Cuddy. A private investigator instead of the traditional police inspector is an interesting choice of main character.
An anonymous reviewer in Kirkus (March 1957) said “A pseudonym here for a first in this field which travels fast but runs a little wild.”
Gair’s books seem to be readily available on the secondary market, although first editions are scarce. The later ones are easier to find than the earlier titles, as is usually the case. The Schultz Money (Collins, 1960; Doubleday, 1960) seems to have been popular, possibly because Anthony Boucher liked it: “…Plausibility extremely low, entertainment value high.” (New York Times, “Criminals at Large”, May 8, 1960).
Fans of private investigators will likely want to look up a couple of Raeburn’s adventures.