The mystery of a hansom cab
Since War and Peace is proving too difficult to read at this time, I am aiming much lower. The book I am trying out is Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab – “the original blockbuster crime novel,” according to the back cover of the Text Classics edition.
Arthur Conan Doyle did not admire the writing of Fergus Hume. I’m not sure I admire it, but I do like it.
The murder is done with poison (chloroform) late at night in a hansom cab. This method has the virtue of noiselessness. Writers of the genre’s later “golden” age would have opted for air-bubble injection – also ludicrous – or strangulation.
Arthur Conan Doyle did not admire the writing of Fergus Hume. I’m not sure I admire it, but I do like it.
“Well,” said Mr Gorby, addressing his reflection in the looking glass, “I’ve been finding out things these last twenty years, but this is a puzzler and no mistake.”Mr Gorby is the detective. Other important characters – socialites in Victorian Melbourne – spend lots of time drinking tea, casually discussing the murder (which the newspapers have turned into a sensation), and trying to arrange marriages for themselves. The book reminds me of nothing else so much as Daisy Ashford’s The Young Visiters, which she wrote when she was nine.
The murder is done with poison (chloroform) late at night in a hansom cab. This method has the virtue of noiselessness. Writers of the genre’s later “golden” age would have opted for air-bubble injection – also ludicrous – or strangulation.