Poison, running through my veins...

The case of Freeman Wills Crofts on this blog is a strange one. A few years ago, I read the short story collection Murderers Make Mistakes. The stories in that collection began as a series of radio plays, and Crofts turned them into short stories. I enjoyed the book, especially the first half, which effectively showcased Inspector French’s strengths as a detective. And yet, for whatever reason, I never returned to Crofts since reviewing that book. His name popped up prominently when I reviewed Curt Evans’ Masters of the Humdrum Mystery, but apart from that, it was all quiet on the Crofts front.

So in August of last year, I decided to remedy the situation by picking up Crofts’ Antidote to Venom, a book which landed on my radar when John over at Pretty Sinister Books reviewed it (and directed me to a website where I found a cheap copy of the book – thanks once again, John!). But tragedy struck, and as I packed my bags to move to the seminary, I managed to lose my copy of Antidote to Venom, having read about halfway through. Then, a few weeks ago, when I was visiting home, a stroke of luck occurred – I found the book, with the bookmark still in place! And so I eagerly picked up the book and after briefly refreshing my memory on what had occurred, I read on.

Slaughterers Slip Up

Murderers make mistakes! … I should just think so! So many devise ingenious schemes to mislead the police and to avert suspicion from themselves: real brainy schemes which ought to succeed. And then they go and spoil them by some tiny oversight which gives the whole thing away, so that their guilt stands out a mile. It’s like a man who fits up an elaborate electrical system in his house: lights, fires, heaters; every conceivable gadget and convenience, and then spoils it all by forgetting to switch on the current.

—     Inspector French, The Case of the Lower Flat (collected in Murderers Make Mistakes

Freeman Wills Crofts is another one of “The Humdrums”, men whose books are too often scorned by critics, although they had quite a following in their day and have been rather influential in the genre.  Crofts seems to have had quite an obsession with seemingly perfect alibis and the way they are broken. Raymond Chandler called him “the soundest builder of them all when he doesn’t get too fancy”. Now, I disagree with Chandler on many points about the genre but he actually has a very good point there, which I will go further into as I take a look at Murderers Make Mistakes.

Murderers Make Mistakes is an interesting short story collection by Freeman Wills Crofts. These stories were originally radio plays, and the book makes no attempt to disguise it. It glories in the fact, giving you the original episodes and their broadcast dates. Eighteen radio plays from Chief Inspector French’s Cases (broadcast between 1943 and 1945) were converted into story form with varied degrees of success. In addition, five cases from Here’s Wishing You Well Again were converted into Inspector French short stories (the original detective being the coroner, Dr. Cataret). There are 23 stories in this collection, and I’m lazy, so once again, I won’t go through each story individually, but give you an idea of the collection as a whole.