First published in 1924, the plot involves a theft of diamonds from a London merchant and the murder of the firm’s Chief Clerk. Inspector French diligently and ploddingly pursues enquiries which lead to blind alleys or more conundra. These enquiries include travelling to different places in Europe, which the author is keen to describe to us to show that he has been there.
I’m afraid found it pedestrian in the extreme and, unlike some other other readers, the meticulous, repetitive spelling out of exactly what each piece of evidence might mean (but then didn't) began to bore me badly. I did quite like some of the travelogue aspects from a century ago, but that wasn't enough to maintain my interest.
Dialogue was pretty terrible, I thought, with supposedly spontaneous remarks sounding like the reading out of a solicitor’s Prepared Statement, and even for 1924 the prose often felt stilted and creaky. I kept thinking of the writings of Kipling or Dorothy L. Sayers or C.S. Forester around that time and how, in their different ways, their prose was so very good by comparison.
I'm glad others have enjoyed it, but Crofts isn't for me. In the High And Far Off Times when I collected (and actually read) those lovely old Penguin Crime Editions, I slogged my way through The Cask. I didn't enjoy it, but after all this time I was prepared to give him another try. Forty years on, I'm afraid I feel the same, so it's no more Freeman Wills Crofts for me, I think.
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