John Francis Russell Fearn (1908-1960) was a productive English writer, publishing short stories and novels under multiple pseudonyms including Hugo Blayn, Gina Dewall, Preston James, Volstead Gridban, and Elton Westward. He is best known for his science fiction work; The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has an extensive entry here: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/fearn_john_russell. He also wrote crime fiction, westerns, romances, and action/adventure stories. He was one of the first British authors to write for the American pulp magazines.
Fearn wrote five mysteries under the name Hugo Blayn; three of them included the series characters of Chief Inspector Mortimer Garth and Sergeant Whittaker. In The Five Matchboxes (Stanley Paul, 1948; Lume Books, 2016) Garth is portrayed as dyspeptic with a predilection for cigars and an interest in competitive crosswords. As the book opens Garth is considering an anonymous letter advising Scotland Yard that stockbroker Granville Collins will be killed in his office that day at a specific time. He deploys police officers to surround the building, which no one is seen to enter or leave. Yet a loud noise sends them running to the top floor, where they break down the locked door to find Collins dead on the floor in the otherwise empty office. Windows closed, doors secured, no weapon to be seen, a corpse with a bullet in his heart. On his desk in the middle of the room are five empty matchboxes.
And thus begins a clear homage to John Dickson Carr. By all accounts Carr would have done more with the set-up, although Fearn’s attempt isn’t terrible. To the point plotting, no extraneous threads here; serviceable rather than stylish writing, Fearn focused on production rather than literary quality. Garth’s investigative approach was by the book, looking into the victim’s past, his family, and his finances and finding tantalizing tidbits everywhere. I was impressed with the description of contemporary forensics. Garth’s interest in voiceprinting several of the suspects was unexpected, as the technology was only developed in the late 1940s.
Garth has an annoying habit of loftily assuring the mystified Whittaker that he knows the identity of the culprit at the end of almost every chapter. I considered Whittaker’s restraint commendable in the face of this overt microaggression, as the coworker who withholds information is one of my pet peeves.
A credible contribution to the locked room genre but not among the top tier. More commentary on the book can be found here:
http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-skeleton-in-cupboard.html