Joanna Maxwell Cannan (1896 – 1961) was an English writer of children’s pony books and adult detective novels. She belonged to a family of prolific writers and all four of her children became writers. Her first mystery was published in 1939; it featured Detective-Inspector Guy Northeast of the Scotland Yard CID, who also led in her next book. As Enid and Tom Schantz pointed out in their Rue Morgue Press reprint of They Rang Up the Police, Northeast was not the typical upper class detective of the time. He was slow but capable although often underestimated. Cannan gave up crime fiction during the war and published several mysteries beginning in 1950 with Detective Inspector Price, a vastly different detective; annoying and curmudgeonly, he’s been compared to Joyce Porter’s Chief Inspector Wilfrid Dover.
In this first appearance, Northeast has fallen out of favor with his superiors after messing up a case. He’s given minor assignments now, which he greatly resents. The current task is to go to the Hampshire countryside to look into the disappearance of Delia Cathcart, one of three middle-aged sisters living quietly with their widowed mother. The local police assume she’s gone away for the weekend, as a married man in the neighborhood disappeared at the same time, but her mother is confident that would never occur to her daughter and has pulled strings to get Scotland Yard involved, much to the resentment of Superintendent Dawes. Delia’s suitcase with her clothes is found in a London train station and the trail goes cold from there. The case is open and shut to the locals, who are sure the missing woman will return in a few days with the straying husband.
Northeast was sent to investigate and so investigate he does, eventually discovering the body of the missing woman. Now faced with a clear homicide, the village police are quick to pass responsibility to Northeast, whom they badger for a fast resolution.
The characters are fascinating and very much of their time and place. Cannan had an eye for the complexities and social dynamics of village life. She seems to have been quite talented in conveying the atmosphere of that ephemeral time between the wars. As is often the case in period stories, a term that I could not find a definition for was used: the Cathcarts were called “biscuits” a couple of times. The meaning had something to do with their money having come from trade rather than land or inheritance, that they were social climbers perhaps, that they assumed a social standing that was not rightfully theirs.
A reader expecting a well clued mystery won’t find it here, however I don’t consider the deficiency an important one. The killer and the motive were a surprise, although considering the personality of the victim, perhaps they shouldn’t have been. Northeast makes a fine detective. It is really too bad that he only appeared twice.
For students of the Golden Age. Fans of books set in the interwar years that focused on the social construct such as those written by R. F. Delderfield, Evelyn Waugh, E. F. Benson, and Nancy Mitford might be interested.