Murder in the Moor by Thomas Kindon (Methuen, 1929; E.P. Dutton, 1929) is the only known mystery by Kindon, who himself is an enigma. The manuscript was entered in Methuen’s Prize Competition for Detective Fiction and achieved third place. Just who Kindon was and why he abandoned a promising crime fiction career is unknown. I discovered a number of Kindons, including two or three named Thomas, living in and around Kidderminster in Worcestershire, but nothing to indicate one of them had a literary bent.
In a discussion on the Pretty Sinister Books blog, J. F. Norris suggested that Kindon is a pseudonym, https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2012/04/ffb-murder-in-moor-thomas-kindon.html. This is a distinct possibility. After all, another of the third-place winners in the contest is Gordon Daviot, one of the pen names of Elizabeth MacKintosh, better known as Josephine Tey. The book in question is the first of her six Alan Grant detective novels, The Man in the Queue. See the back of the Methuen dust jacket for a complete list of contest winners.
Murder in the Moor takes the time-honored (or timeworn) premise of the detective on leave when he encounters a murder. His supervisors take advantage of his presence on site, suspend his leave, and put him in charge. The detective here is Detective Inspector Peregrine Smith who is on a walking trip of thinly disguised Dartmoor. He encounters Angus MacFee, a fellow rambler moving in the same general direction. At the hotel that night they learn from two distressed young ladies that they found a body on the moor earlier in the day, somewhere near the hikers’ path, and did not tell anyone. It’s at this point the reader learns that Smith is in law enforcement. He takes charge, returns to the site with a local constable, and oversees the site until investigative officers arrive. When he notifies his superiors, they as expected give him the case to work.
It is unfortunate Kindon, whoever he or she is, did not pursue further literary endeavors. He demonstrates an original mind that turns tropes on their ear and spins even an overused scenario like this one into fresh material. Smith, unlike most fictional leads, is unprepossessing in appearance and makes little effort to observe social niceties. He does not care that these shortcomings will forever keep him from promotion and lets his peers take advantage of his exceptional technical skills. He is kind, though, and most people respond to his innate warmth.
Kindon’s gift for vivid imagery extends to even minor characters and the natural features of the uninhabited moor, which is especially creepy during heavy fog. Adding to the suspense is the knowledge that a convict has escaped the nearby prison and is believed to still be lurking in the vicinity. (I have no idea why anyone would think that, a felon smart enough to engineer a prison escape would know to leave the area as quickly as possible.) The occasional tendency to lapse into painful analysis about how fast someone can walk on a foggy moor and could they possibly have left one place and arrived at another in time to commit murder is tedious but thankfully brief.
Not surprisingly this book is #30 of the 50 Classics of Crime Fiction (1900–1950) selected by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor. Multiple reprints make this Golden Age one-off easy to locate.