BelEdit Book Reviews
Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist and writer. He wrote more than 200 fiction and non-fiction books, but is most often cited as one of the leading writers of ‘Golden Age’ detective fiction.
A Golden Age influencer
But that’s a misleading description of his work. While indeed his 100+ detective novels were indeed published (roughly) in the Golden Age period, they did not meet the criteria of Golden Age crime fiction conventions. That said, the influence of his work on the Golden Age writers cannot be overstated.
Why J.S. Fletcher’s influence matters
Fletcher was writing at a time when Victorian novels and sensation novels still dominated the English literary scene, while detective fiction was becoming more and more popular. Born in 1863, he would have grown up reading the works of writers such as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and was a contemporary of Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. His work is imbued with their influences. In his turn, Fletcher’s works helped define the classic British mystery, featuring realistic settings, intricate plots, and intellectual detectives. His influence is most evident in the Golden Age authors, who refined and popularised the genre.
From Wikipedia:
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s. While the Golden Age proper is usually taken to refer to works from that period, this type of fiction has been written since at least 1911 and is still being written. […] The rules of the game – and Golden Age mysteries were considered games – were codified in 1929 by Ronald Knox.[5]
In both style and content, Fletcher’s novels are much closer to the traditions of Victorian novels and late-19th century sensation novels than to those of the Golden Age — the works of Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey et al.
His crime novels share the main characteristics of classic Victorian and sensation novels. (See: The greatest stories ever told: Victorian fiction)
The best of J. S. Fletcher
Every Fletcher novel I’ve read has been a gripping read, but below are a few of my favorites.
[The section below is a work in progress…]
BelEdit Book Reviews
Dead Men’s Money (1928)
Dead Men’s Money, like many of Fletcher’s novels is a sprawling novel that is part detective fiction (albeit with no actual detective in the cast of characters), part sensation novel.
Our hero is Hugh Moneylaws. Moneylaws is a junior in a lawyer’s office and becomes a key figure in the story simply by being in the right place at the right time. He’s well-meaning, diligent and quietly ambitious (hoping to make his way so that he can marry his sweetheart), but he’s no bright detective. That role falls to his employer, Mr Lindsey, a lawyer. Moneylaws plays John Watson to Lindsey’s Sherlock Holmes.
When a suspicious stranger, James Gilverthwaite, takes lodgings with Moneylaw’s mother, Moneylaw strives to earn a little extra by running errands for him. When Gilverthwaite falls sick and sends Moneylaws to meet a man in the countryside late at night, Moneylaws stumbles across the man’s dead body while the lodger dies, leaving no clues behind. Why did Gilverthwaite come to Berwick-upon-Tweed, why was he planning to meet the dead man and who murdered him?
Moneylaws and Lindsey race around trying to understand the circumstances and catch a killer. It’s an exciting tale, well told.
Highly recommended.
The Borough Treasurer (1919)
The Borough Treasurer starts with a retired detective, Mr Kitely, threatening to blackmail two well-to-do men, Mr Mallalieu and Mr Cotherstone, now respectively mayor and treasurer of Highmarket, a small town in the north of England. The two have been living there under false names for the past 30 years, having previously served two years’ imprisonment for embezzling £2,000.
That same evening, Kitely is found dead, strangled near Cotherstone’s home. Cotherstone’s daughter is engaged to be married to a Mr Bent, and his friend, Mr Brereton, a young lawyer, is currently visiting. Mr Brereton decides that he will investigate the murder, hoping that this experience will give him kudos as he seeks employment back in London.
With evidence apparently pointing to a local man, Mr Harborough, who refuses to give an alibi, Brereton sets out to dig into Kitely’s past in order to uncover the motive for the murder.
The Borough Treasurer is, like other Fletcher novels, more a sensation novel than Golden Age crime novel, featuring fraud, false identities, old secrets coming to light and of course the hunt for a murderer. It also features a satisfying, dramatic finale. And the only detective in the novel is the victim, not the hero of the story.
With a cast of well-drawn, vivid characters and plenty of action, The Borough Treasurer is another very enjoyable Fletcher novel. Available for free at Project Gutenberg.
The Middle Temple Murder (1919)
Review coming soon.
Ravensdene Court (1922)
Review coming soon.
I hope this article will help interest you in the novels of this underrated and mostly forgotten author.
If you’re happy to read a digitalised version of an early print (i.e. with potential mistakes and without modern editing and notes), you can find many of Fletcher’s novels free at Project Gutenberg.
Recommended novels by J. S. Fletcher:
The Talleyrand Maxim (1919)
Scarhaven Keep (1920)
The Herapath Property (1920)
The Lost Mr. Linthwaite (1920)
The Orange-Yellow Diamond (1920)
The Markenmore Mystery (1921)
The Root of All Evil (1921)
Wrychester Paradise (1921)
In the Mayor’s Parlour (1922)
The Charing Cross Mystery (1923)
The Mazaroff Murder (1923)
The Kang-He Vase (1924)
The Safety Pin (1924)
Sea Fog (1925)
The Bedford Row Mystery (1925)
The Cartwright Gardens Murder (1925)
The Mill of Many Windows (1925)
The Secret Way (1925)
The Amaranth Club (1926)
The Passenger to Folkestone (1927)
The Ransom for London (1929)
The Yorkshire Moorland Mystery (1930)
Murder at Wrides Park (1931)
Murder in Four Degrees (1931)
The Solution of a Mystery(1931)
Murder of the Ninth Baronet (1932)
Murder in the Squire’s Pew (1932)
The Borgia Cabinet (1932)
The Solution of a Mystery (1932)