FFB: Wycliffe and the Three Toed Pussy

For all the writers out there who are getting a late start in life, the author of my FFB pick for today should be an inspiration. W.J. Burley started his career as an engineer before going back to college to study zoology and becoming head of the biology department at Newquay School in Cornwall. But he'd always wanted to write, and finally saw his first novel published when he was 51.

He said his intention was "to write interesting detective fiction which did not exploit extreme forms of violence or sex and was relatively free of four-letter words. In doing this I thought I might help fill a gap that was left in the market by the gradual disappearance of the traditional whodunnit." His first effort, Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy, was published in 1968, but it's clear Burley continued in the traditions of the Golden Age of detective fiction from the decades preceding.

The Wycliffe of the title is Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Wycliffe, a man who admits he'd never really felt like a policeman and often wondered why he joined, hating discipline, regimentation, and sometimes order—although he hates violence more. He also loses confidence in himself at the beginning of a case, "avoiding his subordinates for fear of earning their mute criticism, and, forced into their company, he became agressively dictatorial. Those who knew him shrugged. 'He'll be all right when he's run in.'"

Many of the Golden Age hallmarks are present in the novel: fair play, a rural country setting, a whodunnit-style murder, a small, closed group of suspects and the denouement at the end with Wycliffe gathering the prime suspects together. True to Burley's philosophy, there are no four-letter words and no extreme violence or sex, although sex does play a starring role in the form of the titular victim, Pussy Wells, both by her lifestyle and the double-entendre of her name.

The book opens with Wycliffe examining the body of Wells, an attractive 26-year-old who writes crossword puzzles for a living. She's been shot, and only one of her shoes and stockings removed, revealing a deformed foot with three toes. It doesn't take long in the investigation for Wycliffe to discover that Wells was a very complicated and troubled young woman, intelligent but manipulative and cruel. She was also quite promiscuous, using men as her puppets, thereby creating a ready pool of suspects in the small village of Kergwyns. As Wycliffe digs deeper, he links another murder, an attempted murder and an alleged suicide to Pussy's death, all leading to the ultimate resolution and one which leaves "a deeper impression on the superintendent than any in his experience."

Burley went on to publish another seventeen Wycliffe books, as well as six other books including one sci-fi title that Martin Edwards has mentioned in his blog (where he aptly refers to Wycliffe as the "English Simenon").  In 1993, one of the Wycliffe stories was made into a television pilot starring Jack Shepherd, and proved successful enough to inspire 37 episodes over the next five years. Unfortunately, as Edwards notes, people tend to remember Shepherd and his portrayal of Wycliffe, yet have largely forgotten W.J. Burley.