FFB: Lonelyheart 4122

Colin Watson (1920-1983) was a British author who started out in life as a journalist, first as a reporter for the Boston Guardian and later as an editorial writer, theater critic and book reviewer. In 1958, while still working for newspapers, Watson published the first Flaxborough novel, Coffin, Scarcely Used, a book that Cecil Day-Lewis (who also wrote mysteries as Nicholas Blake) called "a great lark, full of preposterous situations and poker-faced wit."

Following the publication of the second book in the series, Watson retired to write full time and published a dozen mystery novels between 1958 and 1982. His mystery series came to known as The Flaxborough Chronicles, set as they were in Flaxborough, a fictional East Anglian city, population 15,000, loosely based on the Lincolnshire area of Boston where Watson worked as a journalist. The lead character in the series is Inspector Walter Purbright, assisted by his somewhat naive sidekick, Sergeant Sidney Love, and the Chief Constable, Harcourt Chubb. Watson's third book in the Chronicles, Hopjoy Was Here, won him a Silver Dagger from the British Crime Writers Association in 1962, and five years later he won a second Silver Dagger with Lonelyheart 4122.

Jeffery Ewener, a fan of Watson's work, wrote for the Mystery Magazine Web that in Watson's fictional world, "you find this...combination of superficial blandness deceptively concealing an uproar of animal spirits - like a hymn book hollowed-out to hold a hip flask. Watson gives us geriatric gentlemen patting bottoms, matronly housewives jumping into orgies, MI5 agents running up huge unpaid bar bills for reasons of National Security, austere solicitors blackmailing the local gentry."

As an example of what Ewener is referring to, take this excerpt from Lonelyheart 4122:

"Well, they didn't seem very pleased to see me, sir. Singleton wouldn't come out of the garden. He was going up and down with a lawn mower all the time. I had to ask each question as he went by one way, and try and catch the answer when he passed on the way back."

"Very trying for you, Sid."

"Not really. The answers were all very short. And him being so busy made it easier to get the writing samples. I just pinched three or four of the labels on his rose bushes. Of course," Love added, nodding at the file,  "I trimmed them down a bit and mounted them properly."

"So I noticed. Most neat. Now I understand why I couldn't make much sense out of "Peace Mrs. Pettifer Brevvitt's Pride Lancashire Ascending."

Lonelyheart 4122 introduces us to the character of Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime, who subsequently appeared in all Flaxborough novels save one. In this outing, Inspector Purbright's investigation into the disappearance of two respectable middle-aged women leads him to a matrimonial bureau where he meets another client, Miss Teatime, whom Purbright fears may also be in danger. But Miss Teatime doesn't want anything to do with his protection, and neither Miss Teatime nor her shady beau, a retired naval officer, is what they appear to be.

Four of The Flaxborough Chronicles were filmed for the BBC's  "Murder Most English" program, including Lonelyheart 4122. For a review of the TV episode based on the novel, check out Martin Edwards's estimable blog.

Comments

[Noircyclopedia]

Nice writeup.

One correction:

first as a reporter for the Boston Guardian and then later back in his home country

The Guardian (and still is?) the newspaper in Boston, Lincolnshire, UK -- as you indeed imply in the following para.

[BV Lawson]

Thanks for the catch! Late-night posts aren't always a good idea...

[Noircyclopedia]

"Late-night posts aren't always a good idea..."

I know this only too well!

[J F Norris]

Good to know that Lucy Teatime will be in the other Watson books I plan to read in the coming months. I was very impressed with this mystery novel and thoroughly enjoyed it. Too odd us writing about it and posting it on the same day!

Last night I tried to find if someone had uploaded that TV episode to the internet but my efforts failed. I did watch about one and half minutes of a teaser for some other episode in the series and was bored. Four men sitting around a table talking. The UK 1970s mystery shows were rather static, like videotaped stage plays and not to my taste at all. Most of them don't hold up well these days.

[BV Lawson]

What a great name, too -- Lucy Teatime. I'm not aware of any copies of the TV versions, but I'll be they're hiding somewhere online. I'll let you know if I find any.