The house of Highways, just outside the resort village of Seabreak, is home to Quentin Trowte and his granddaughter Jeanne. The servants live in a bungalow close by. Fearful of losing their positions, they ignore the screaming they hear every night, until at last they call in Ludovic Travers – via his sister Helen – to investigate.
But on Travers’ first night-time visit to the house, he finds Quentin dying of a stab wound.
While Travers begins to uncover the truth about Highways, young Jeanne goes to stay with Helen, and Travers too begins to care for her in his own way. But can he – will he – discover who killed Quentin Trowte? Based on Travers’ own evidence, it seems that no one could have killed him at all.
This is in fact my fourth encounter with Ludovic Travers, Christopher Bush’s series sleuth. All of the previous ones I found to be pleasant but unmemorable detective stories, showing solid construction and decent writing but nothing that stands out. (Ok, I remember something about The Case of the Chinese Gong, but not for positive reasons).
So I’m not sure what it was that compelled me to start The Case of the Missing Minutes, when my TBR pile is filled with books clamouring for urgent attention. But having done so, I’m very glad I did.
From its title, you might guess that The Case of the Missing Minutes is all about breaking an alibi, as many of Bush’s mysteries are – and in fact it is. But for once this puzzle has impact beyond the mechanics of it.
The opening is a good start, already establishing Travers’ relationship with his sister. Once Travers follows her to Seabreak, Bush does well in building an unsettling atmosphere as Travers walks from the village – where beautiful music emanates from the piano-player’s house – to the servants’ cottage, where Travers can hear the sound of screams from the mansion.
Before Quentin Trowte dies, the question Travers is trying to answer is – what is the nature of the relationship between him and his grand-daughter Jeanne? Everyone claims he dotes on her, and yet there are the screams…
I have to say that everyone in the book seems painfully naive to modern eyes. Particularly the police after Trowte’s death. The first part of the story concerns Travers’ search for answers about the relationship. Fortunately there is also plenty of focus on the murder itself, or we would be left waiting for the characters to catch up. It becomes apparent that, given the time of death noted by Travers, everyone has a seemingly air-tight alibi, and there are several tricks to be worked out here.
But also, Jeanne is left traumatized after the murder, and Travers decides she should recuperate far away from Seabreak, with his sister Helen. He hopes she’ll recover enough to reveal what she saw the night of the murder. Throughout the book he visits her, and comes to care for her in a very heartwarming way. The book’s focus shifts from the investigation to Jeanne’s recovery. But even as it does so, Travers is still wondering about that alibi problem…
This all resolves in a scene which proves that the solution to an impossible alibi can be a touching emotional resolution as well. With so much work in the area of clockwork alibis, Bush managed to find one that was tricky enough that I couldn’t guess it, while proving a perfect capstone to the book’s emotional arc. This seems like a rare feat within the usually dry alibi-cracking subgenre.
In fact there is some care taken to characterize the victim and several of the suspects, making this very much a puzzle with a heart.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, with the main downside being the to-naive-to-be-true police. My only concern is that it seems like Jeanne (and other potential emotional complications) won’t be making any further appearances, judging by reviews of the following books. Which seems terribly unfair for her. But this has certainly got me wondering if there are other books by Christopher Bush that are as good as this one. His skill with puzzle plots does matter – but there needs to be something else besides that to keep me engaged.
Other opinions:
Beneath the Stains of Time
The Grandest Game in the World
In Search of the Classic Mystery
Window Through Time