The Rasp

by Philip MacDonald

Synopsis:

The Rasp introduces the world to the amazing Anthony Gethryn, an ex-secret service agent, and occasional newspaper correspondent. He is assigned to cover the story of a cabinet minister, John Hoode, who was found murdered in the library of his country house, battered to death with a wood-rasp. Scotland yard has only one suspect Hoode’s secretary Alan Deacon. But Gethryn is convinced that Deacon did not do it. To prove that he’ll have to investigate himself and find the real killer. But everyone else who might have had a motive has a cast-iron alibi. Can he crack the case and bring the killer to justice?

I picked up Philip MacDonald’s The Rasp because he’s a Golden Age crime writer I hadn’t read yet, and I do love to read even an indifferent classic crime story when I’m in a bit of a funk. This book introduces his series detective, Anthony Gethryn, who ends up being asked to enquire in a private capacity by a friend who works for a newspaper. He ends up more deeply involved than that after a love-at-first-sight moment with someone who seems to be part of the whole mystery, leading to a couple of dramatic moments.

All in all, I quite liked it; it reminded me most of Sayers’ work, in part because Gethryn’s very prone to quotation and piffle. I find him somewhat less charming than Wimsey, all the same, perhaps because the two characters are handled in different ways. Gethryn’s meant to be charming and plausible and people are (for the most part) enjoying his tendency to quotation, and overall he comes across as maybe a bit too perfect and a bit too much to everyone’s taste — while Wimsey is both presented as getting irritating sometimes (which he surely would in real life) and with self-deprecation that somehow helps the reader swallow it all and find him charming anyway. Sayers is probably the better writer, even if she was a bit too in love with Wimsey herself.

Still, it was entertaining. I’d say the murderer is a bit of a cheat because I don’t think the evidence is presented to the reader with enough weight to really be fair-play, though I did myself guess who it was going to be based on who I was pretty sure it wasn’t. Someone else says that you can’t guess because the person is never investigated, and that’s sort of true. I did figure out what happened with the titular rasp before it actually got to that, though, so there are clues.

The denouement being mostly a long letter from Gethryn that elucidates everything a bit really slows everything down and wasn’t the best choice, while the romances are fairly shrug. Like Wimsey, Gethryn falls in love more or less at first sight, but he doesn’t nearly earn his happy ending in the same way.

It’s perhaps unfair comparing this to Sayers, given she was deservedly one of the Queens of Crime, and is a favourite of mine besides… but it’s the comparison that felt inevitable given the givens. It’s still fun, all the same.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)