Crime and Craftsmanship

By Paul Gray

THE DETLING SECRET by Julian Symons; Viking; 225 pages; $14.75 THE TIGERS OF SUBTOPIA by Julian Symons; Viking; 221 pages; $14.75

English Author Julian Symons, 70, has been putting together intricately crafted and plotted novels for roughly four decades, earning along the way more respect from peers than public fame. His history of detective fiction (Bloody Murder) and biographies of Poe and Dickens, among others, have won scholarly tribute. Just last year he was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, an honor shared by only three other compatriots: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne du Maurier. Symons' name is not so well known as theirs, but like them he can invest a plot with significance beyond its conclusion. Symons has never approached the fame of Agatha Christie, whom he succeeded in 1976 as president of Britain's Detection Club. Yet he may now be on the brink of solving the mystery of his comparative obscurity. At an age when most writers are, to put it gently, no longer productive, he is overseeing the publication of two new books on the same day. Taken together, they may prove a case to a wider array of jurors: Symons is far more than a maker of puzzles; he is a master of moral conundrums.

Exhibit No. 1 is The Detling Secret, a novel molded into the shape of the classic whodunit. The setting is England, the time the 1890s. Sir Arthur Detling is a crusty old Tory, holder of "one of the most ancient baronetcies in the land." Among the burdens Sir Arthur must bear is his older daughter Dolly's determination to marry Bernard Ross, a Liberal M.P. with a mysterious past: although born in England, he spent part of his childhood in the U.S. Sir Arthur disapproves of his new son-in-law and of Parliament, which he calls "the talking shop." He is further nettled by his son's marriage to the daughter of a financier, whose occupation Sir Arthur views as "almost as low as being in trade." The old man also rails at the spread of public education and the rumor that some London clubs are using billiard balls composed not exclusively of ivory.

While artfully setting up such comic relief and the mysteries to follow, Symons provides panoramic background. The question of Irish Home Rule charges the atmosphere. Prime Minister William Gladstone tries vainly to keep Parliament in session until it wears down and disposes of the Irish problem. Meanwhile, militant Irish congregate in London to plot bombings and other extralegal redresses. A delegation of three calls on Ross; people in his circle begin wondering where the young M.P.'s loyalties lie. Symons also conducts a guided tour of London's fin de siecle bohemia, where the names conjured with include Whistler, Turner and Beardsley. Oscar Wilde drops in on a party and charms everyone he greets.

When the first body appears, the event is almost disappointing, since so many other interesting plots have been set in motion. Symons anticipates this problem and shows how everything must converge in the murder. Then he tops himself with a second, this one occurring within the time-honored no-exit confines of a British country house. When the killer is unmasked, Symons still has enough ingenuity in reserve to put some reverse English on the disposition of the discovery.

"I have come tonight to plead for romance in the world of crime, for the locked room murder..." Thus the hero of one of the eleven stories in The Tigers of Subtopia addresses a club of criminologists in London. As it happens, Oliver Glass is starring in a West End production of one of his own detective plays. He is simultaneously planning the perfect crime in real life: the murder of his wife, to be accomplished during a brief intermission. Everyone in the theater will believe he is confined onstage, awaiting the next curtain. A perfect crime does indeed take place, but Glass is not its architect.

Such a reversal is typical of the stories in this collection, which owe as much to the tradition of O. Henry as to that of Conan Doyle. First Symons reveals a talent for the irresistible opening sentence: "There was a good deal of argument about the justice of the verdict when Evelyn Ellis was found guilty but insane." Or: "Caroline Amesbury had been married for three years before she had her first walk out with a man." Once this pace has been established, Symons races through plot complications (the old revolver stored safely in a drawer, an incriminating letter to a spouse accidentally opened and read) toward conclusions that upset the best-laid plans.

Unlike The Detling Secret, these stories are set in the present, most often in snug English suburban neighborhoods that Symons infuses with malevolence. There is the Oasis, which is supposed to protect its residents from hooliganism and does not. When four flabby businessmen turn vigilante, their neighborhood becomes unsafe not just for them but from them.

In The Murderer, a married couple live in a house called Mon Repos: "It was one in a short road of exactly similar houses, all of which had names, names which included Eagle's Nest, Chez Nous, Everest and Happy Landings." In the world as Symons describes it, nothing seems more natural than that people who dwell in such places should go extravagantly bananas.

Two such vigorous books from a writer 70 years old pose a mystery: Where does Symons find the energy and inspiration? Since the achievement is not a crime, Symons does not try to solve it. As it has been doing for as long as most readers can remember, his work speaks for itself.

--By Paul Gray

Excerpt

Robin Edgley, he said, retired director of a firm manufacturing fan ventilators, you are reaching out for happiness, and there is only one way to obtain it. Make up your mind to that. But what you are about to do is crazy, another part of himself said; you are thinking of forever but she is thinking of today and tomorrow and perhaps next year. And not only is it crazy but it is wrong, opposed to all the instincts you have lived by since youth. How can you imagine that after doing wrong you will be happy? What does that matter, the first voice said...

--The Tigers of Subtopia This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.